this episode is brought to you by eight sleep with the ever-growing proliferation of renewable energy
sources like wind and solar and new solar and wind breakthrough seemingly every day you got to
think that we're pretty close to a future of pure clean energy but the question of how to store all
that clean energy still remains a crucial factor as engineers the world over seek the holy grail
of battery storage they leave no stone unturned it's not like we could just make batteries out
of thin air or can we one learning option for grid energy storage is cryogenic energy storage
basically storing air as energy could this storage method pave the way for storing off-peak power
for use later and how does it stack up against other battery options like pumped hydro or
lithium ion battery storage we cover all kinds of energy storage technology on this channel from ev
batteries with various chemistries to mechanical batteries like flywheels and sterling engines
one notion that always crops up is that every technology has a trade-off pumped hydro is cheap
with high energy efficiency but a low energy density this means requires a huge amount of
space to store more energy making it incompatible with certain regions there's battery technology
like lithium-ion which has high efficiency and density but requires a lot of resources
some of which are in short supply or difficult to acquire meaning we have to make decisions about
how best to allocate these resources the best way forward is to have a variety of options available
to fit ever changing factors like size cost and environmental context over in the uk technology
innovators high view power have developed a proprietary cryogenic energy storage system that's
really starting to turn the heads of investors and environmentalists alike now when we think of
cryogenics you might be picturing han solo frozen in carbonite or the myth that walt disney's frozen
body is stored in a secret lab under disneyland which we can neither confirm nor deny but cryo
storage is nowhere near as elusive or creepy the company's technology actually derives from liquid
air engines invented by engineer peter dearman in the early 2000s over the last two decades highview
power together with researchers the university of leeds built upon and refined deerman's engine to
produce something that could realistically become a viable replacement for the uk's current power
infrastructure like all energy based systems highview power's cryo air battery consists of
three main processes a charging system a storage phase and a discharge phase the charging process
begins by using off-peak electricity for instance when the wind turbine spins in the afternoon when
no one is home or watching tv or warming the tea kettle that energy powers two centrifugal
integrally geared compressors one main air compressor that pulls air out of the atmosphere
and a second recycle compressor which drives the refrigeration cycle these compressors supercool
the surrounding air we're talking colder than cold actually it's even colder than that we're talking
minus 196 degrees celsius or negative 320 degrees fahrenheit cold enough for the air which typically
exists in a gaseous state to become a liquid that cold compressed air now in liquid form gets stored
in heat insulated low pressure vessels until all those brits come home from work and start turning
on their lights and flipping on the tele the cryogenic battery storage system takes advantage
of the relationship between temperature volume and pressure described by the ideal gas law think of
boiling water water unlike air is liquid at room temperature and if sufficient heat is applied
or pressure is dropped say by putting water in a vacuum it'll turn to gas and expand in volume this
complex relationship is how the refrigeration cycle and air conditioners and fridges work and
it's also at the core of this energy storage technology when power is needed the liquid air
is heated back up to ambient temperatures and drawn from the vessel where it undergoes rapid
re-gassification yes that's actually a real word during this stage the gas expands up to 700 times
in volume going from a low pressure in the tank to incredibly high pressure think of pressing the
button on a can of compressed air you might use to clean your keyboard only on a much larger scale
the high pressure air is used to drive a turbine which then generates electricity
the process uses clever processes to recycle the heat and cold during the charge and discharge
process as the air is compressed the heat that escapes gets stored remember there's technically
no such thing as cold only the absence of heat so instead of letting that heat just escape into
the atmosphere the system includes a method of storing that heat when charging then applying
it using heat exchangers to an intermediate heat transfer fluid during discharge sounds
complicated but basically they're harnessing the heat and using it back and forth in the loop
to become more efficient also during discharge the very cold air released during the process is
exhausted and captured by proprietary high-grade cold store where it can be used later to enhance
the battery's overall efficiency more on that in a little bit one main benefit of cryo storage
over other technologies is the flexibility and scalability unlike pumped hydro as we mentioned
at the top which requires large amounts of space cryo storage can be located anywhere and there's
no size limitation or geographical constraint is particularly well suited for niche applications
for decentralized power in fact highviewpower plans to locate a 50 megawatt 500 megawatt hour
liquid air energy storage facility in the atacama region in chile before we get back to
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eu and australia huge thanks to eight sleep and you for supporting the show but let's talk about
efficiency how do these cryo batteries stack up to other energy storage technologies the market today
in terms of overall efficiency lithium-ion batteries still rain supreme at between 85
and 95 efficient while lithium ion can and is being used for grid level storage they tend to
excel in things like computers phones and even electric cars with demand for lithium and other
ev battery materials soaring it would be nice to have other options for larger grid storage okay
so what about other forms of storage right now in the us pumped hydro accounts for about 95 percent
of utility scale energy storage making it by far the most popular and for good reason in terms of
efficiency it falls not far behind lithium ion at a range between 70 and 85 it's also the cheapest
energy storage technology in the world in terms of cost per installed kilowatt hour of capacity
ranging between 100 and 200 per kilowatt hour compared to between 390 and 580 for lithium-ion
batteries and around 400 per kilowatt hour of natural gas so how do cryo batteries stack up
right now base efficiency is relatively low around 25 but developers have found several ways to get
the most out of these systems a third-party review from dnvgl and international accredited registrar
and classification society in norway suggest that without the use of external thermal energy the
charge discharge cycle of cryo batteries can reach efficiencies in the minimum of around 55 percent
configured to receive thermal energy from an external source say thermal exhaust from another
power plant could achieve round-trip efficiencies of between 65 and 75 which would make them far
more competitive by using waste heat from nearby industrial facilities highview has been able to
successfully achieve 70 efficiency in their pilot facilities in the uk and by efficiently recycling
their own heat from the charging station these facilities could become even more efficient in
theory right now at 10 hour 200 megawatt 1.2 gigawatt hour cryo battery system offers a
levelized cost of storage around 140 dollars per megawatt hour but unlike chemical storage with
cryo batteries the bigger the facility the lower the cost becomes because all you're really paying
for is the tanks and all the infrastructure but the air doesn't add up as you increase the battery
size according to dr javier cavada high view ceo a 50 megawatt six hour duration installation hit
the point of inflection to get cost below lithium ion but he says with duration installations at 10
12 or even 16 hours the cost drops below lithium ion significantly so while the technology may
trail behind other storage methods in terms of efficiency the cost and flexibility of cryo energy
storage can be really attractive especially in places where options like pumped hydro storage
may not be feasible the best part about the technology is that unlike so much of what we cover
on this channel these systems exist today highview has already begun construction on their first
50 megawatt project in the uk with a planned four gigawatt-hour pipeline of projects including some
in the us and as we mentioned above latin america i do like energy storage approaches that utilize
very abundant materials and what's more abundant than air plus there's no mining or supply chains
to contend with but here's the thing at the end of the day every form of energy storage comes down to
efficiency if i have 100 kilowatts of energy and i need to store it how much actually gets stored
an efficiency of 90 for liquid amount of batteries means 90 kilowatts actually makes it into storage
most energy storage converts energy in the charge cycle for pumped hydro you run big pumps to move
water up into a higher reservoir but to get that water back all you need to do is open a gate and
let the gravity do the rest unfortunately for cryogenic energy storage this isn't the case
energy is converted from excess electricity into potential energy in compressed liquefied gas
but to get that energy back out the liquid gas needs to be heated which also requires energy as
we outline the key to make this sort of storage viable will be the synergy of housing alongside
other industrial processes anything that produces excess waste heat think anything with a heat pump
or smelters can make good sites for such a technology the more waste heat that can be
harnessed the less extra energy is needed for the discharge process to initialize but even
then this technology will never be as efficient as lithium on batteries but if we could get close to
60 or 70 percent that might actually be good enough especially as producing wind and solar gets
cheaper and cheaper and more and more abundant like everything in engineering you can draw a
spectrum of trade-offs and try to find the ideal solution more exotic materials complex supply
chains and more efficiency or utter abundance and lower efficiency but with research into this sort
of technology at least we'll have every possible option available to us in the coming years but let
us know what you think what are some regions or contexts that could benefit from something like
the cryo battery does the lower cost make up for the subpar efficiency sound off in the comments
below alright you know i love energy storage and i love when you can store energy without
having to do any mining or deal with supply chains that's really the heart of this story and if you
mentioned if you can harness waste heat from some other plant nearby there's some good synergy there
and that could probably make a little bit of sense but all right let's look at the cryo
battery huge thanks to all of you guys for watching and we'll catch you guys next week