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Whether it’s a malicious authoritarian plot or plain old bureaucratic bungling, President Trump has compromised air safety, public health, and national security, and capitulated to Russia, all within his first 30 days in office. That’s just the short list, and the hurts keep on coming. Nevertheless, clean energy investors still seem to think the US is a worthwhile investment. The latest example is a $200 million bet on the Canadian firm Hydrostor, in support of the company’s plans for introducing advanced compressed air energy storage to the US, Canada, and other parts of the world.
Compressed Air Energy Storage: Why?
The idea behind compressed air energy storage is pretty simple. Use excess renewable energy to squeeze plain air into an airtight space, then release it to run a turbine when electricity is needed.
That sounds pretty straightforward, though the devil is in the details. Compressing air for energy storage at the utility scale is complicated and expensive. Meanwhile, lithium-ion batteries are already on the market, where they are commonly used for storing wind and solar energy.
Li-ion technology has its limitations, though. Beyond supply chain complications, Li-ion arrays typically just a handful of hours. That’s enough to cover short-lived emergencies and run through daily grid management tasks. However, it falls short of long duration needed for the grid of the future, which will be saturated with more wind and solar. The US Department of Energy has set a goal of at least 10 hours for new long duration systems, with an eye on multiple days into months and entire seasons.
Compressed Air Energy Storage To Squash Fossil Fuels
Hydrostor announced the new $200 million infusion on February 13, noting that the Canada Growth Fund and the Canadian firm CPP Investments spearheaded the funding round along with Goldman Sachs Alternatives.
Large-scale compressed air energy storage systems typically deploy underground caverns, which are far less expensive than building storage tanks. Hydrostor adds an additional twist, calling its technology A-CAES for Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage.
Advanced refers to the use of water as an efficiency booster and system stabilizer. In Hydrostor’s A-CAES system, heat from the air compression step is extracted and stored before the air is pumped to underground storage, in a cavern filled with water. As the air fills the cavern, it forces water to rise up a shaft to a reservoir on the surface. Once the water gets to the reservoir, the system is charged and ready to deliver energy.
To discharge the system, water is released back into the cavern to displace air, which rises to the surface and mixes with the stored heat before being shunted off to a turbine to generate electricity.
Among other targets, Hydrostar has spotted some fat, juicy, low hanging fruit in the form of existing fossil energy power plants that are nearing retirement.
“A-CAES serves as replacement capacity for end-of-life fossil fuel assets, by providing identical synchronous generation for grid reliability, without emissions,” Hydrostor explains. The company cites the availability of existing transmission lines and other electrical infrastructure among the benefits of repurposing fossil power plant sites.
Hydrostor’s 7-gigawatt energy storage project pipeline includes compressed air facilities in Australia and Europe as well as the US and Canada. The Canadian project is already up and running in Goderich, Ontario, under contract with the Independent Electricity System Operator. Two projects are also set to begin construction this year, one in Australia and the other in Rosamond, California.
Hydrostar also lists Nevada, Arizona, New York, and utilities in the Southeast and Northwest among other markets it is actively pursuing. “Because our facilities can be located in the majority of jurisdictions around the world, we expect to have a presence in many of these markets as they establish their LDES policies,” Hydrostar adds, referring to long duration energy storage systems.
Compressed Air Energy And The 100% Clean Grid Of The Future
Hydrostor’s forthcoming Rosamond compressed air project surfaced on the CleanTechnia radar a while back. Called the Willow Rock Energy Center, it also caught the eye of the US Department of Energy. On January 8, in the waning days of the Biden administration, the Energy Department and Hydrostor reached a conditional commitment for a loan guarantee of up to $1.76 billion to help fund the 500-megawatt project.
“If finalized, this loan guarantee would establish the U.S. as a leader in deploying novel long-duration energy storage infrastructure, while creating 700 peak construction jobs and 40 full-time operations jobs,” Hydrostor noted.
Or, maybe not. President Trump issued a blanket freeze on federal disbursements upon taking office, including much of the work falling under the purview of the Energy Department. It’s possible that Hydrostar can engage alternative financing for Willow Rock without the loan guarantee, but that remains to be seen.
If the loan guarantee manages to survive the Trump chopping block environmental reviews and other requirements need to be fulfilled before it is finalized. According to Hydrostor’s timetable, if all goes according to plan the Willow Rock facility will go online sometime during 2030. That’s in plenty of time to contribute to a 100% clean electricity grid by 2035 — oh, wait…
Kiss That 100% Clean Grid Goodbye
In the words of the great Emily Latilla, never mind. Back in 2022 the National Renewable Energy Laboratory sketched out four scenarios for achieving a 100% zero emission grid by 2035, including nuclear energy as well as renewables. They concluded it was do-able, but with a caveat.
“In all modeled scenarios, new clean energy technologies are deployed at an unprecedented scale and rate to achieve 100% clean electricity by 2035,” NREL explained, emphasizing that wind and solar capacity would have to be added at rapid and sustained rate.
That was before Trump took office and went on a rampage against wind and solar development on federal lands, effectively snuffing out the US offshore wind industry in one blow. The scenarios no longer seem do-able although NREL did note that nuclear energy could help fill the gap if wind and solar developers encountered siting and land use obstacles.
NREL also allowed for an increase in energy storage, 5–8 gigawatts of new hydropower, and 3–5 gigawatts of new geothermal capacity by 2035. In an odd twist, Trump tapped both hydropower and geothermal energy for favorable treatment alongside coal, oil, and natural gas.
The geothermal connection is pretty obvious, considering that stakeholders in the oil and gas services industry are among those supporting new enhanced geothermal systems. If you have any thoughts about where the hydropower angle comes in, drop a note in the comment thread.
To make your voice heard in Washington, contacting your representatives in Congress is a good place to start. Find them here.
Image (cropped): Trump or no Trump, new large scale compressed air energy storage facilities can replace fossil power plants, including power plants in the US (courtesy of Hydrostor).
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