The Anonymous Widower

Climate Emission Killer: Construction Begins On World’s Biggest Liquid Air Battery

The title of this post, is the same at that of this article in the Guardian.

This is the introductory paragraph.

Construction is beginning on the world’s largest liquid air battery, which will store renewable electricity and reduce carbon emissions from fossil-fuel power plants.

These are a few points from the Guardian and other articles on other web sites, including Wikipedia.

• The size of the battery is 250 MWh.
• It can delivery up to 50 MW of power. which translates to five hours at full power, if the battery is full.
• If it was already working, it would be the ninth biggest battery of all types, except for pumped storage, in the world.
• It will be built at Trafford Energy Park near to Carrington power station.
• It will be double the size of the largest chemical battery, which was built by Tesla in South Australia.
• It is being built by a company call Carlton Highview Storage, which is a joint venture between Carlton Power and Highview Power.
• It should start commercial operation in 2022.
• The installation of the battery is an £85million project.
• The Government have chipped in with a £10million grant.

Some reports say, this could be one of four of Highview Power’s 250 MWh CRYObatteries to be developed by the joint venture.

I will add some observations of my own.

Carrington Power Station

This Google Map shows the site of Carrington Power station.

Note.

1. Flixton station is in the North-East corner of the map.
2. Irlam station is on the Western edge of the map.
3. South of the railway between the two stations, there is a large industrial site, that sits in a bend in the River Mersey.

This second Google Map shows an enlargement of the site.

Note.

1. Carrington power station in the middle of the site.
2. Large amounts of brownfield land.
3. The Manchester Ship Canal passing to the West of the site.

Wikipedia says this about the design of Carrington power station.

The station is a Combined-Cycle Power Plant (CCPP), using natural gas to generate 884MW of electricity. The CCPP uses both a gas and a steam turbine together, to produce up to 50 percent more electricity from the same fuel than a traditional simple-cycle plant. The waste heat from the gas turbine is routed to the nearby steam turbine, which generates additional power. Carrington consists of two CCPP KA26-1 units. At operating design conditions, each CCPP unit generates 442.3 MW net output. The station generates enough power to meet the electricity needs of one million homes in the UK and began commercial operation on 18 September 2016.

Wikipedia also says the following.

• The plant has an efficiency of 58%. Is that good for this type of gas-fired Combined Cycle Gas Turbine power station? 64% seems to be about the best but Carrington is better than the about 50% possible with a conventional gas turbine plant.
• Much of the heavy equipment for the power station was brought by barge along the Manchester Ship Canal.
• The station is also a combined heat and power plant, capable of providing nearby businesses with steam, if they require a supply. This could be useful to a Highview Power CRYObattery, as a low-grade heat-source is needed to recovery the stored energy by warming the liquid air.

Given the following.

• There is space available near to the power station.
• A 250 MWh CRYObattery would probably fit in a size smaller than two football pitches.
• Carlton have permission to build another CCGT at the site.
• Carrington has a very good electrical connection to the grid, as nearly all power stations do.
• Heavy components can be brought in by barge on the canal.

, it would appear that the area would be a good place to site the first gr-scale CRYObattery.

Conclusion

I think siting the first grid-scale CRYObattery close to Carrington power station at the Trafford Energy Park, fits together well and I could see more CRYObatteries being installed in the following types of location.

• At existing power stations.
• On the sites of demolished power stations, that still have good grid connections.
• Where interconnectors and power from offshore wind connects to the grid.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Drax Group install a system at one of their sites, as a CRYObattery could help cut their carbon-emissions.

June 18, 2020 - Posted by AnonW | Energy Storage | Carlton Power, Drax, Energy, Highview Power, Manchester