Performance Analysis of a Coal-Fired External Combustion Compressed Air Energy Storage System

Compressed air energy storage (CAES) is one of the large-scale energy storage technologies utilized to provide effective power peak load shaving. In this paper, a coal-fired external combustion CAES, which only uses coal as fuel, is proposed. Unlike the traditional CAES, the combustion chamber is substituted with an external combustion heater in which high-pressure air is heated before entering turbines to expand in the proposed system. A thermodynamic analysis of the proposed CAES is conducted on the basis of the process simulation. The overall efficiency and the efficiency of electricity storage are 48.37% and 81.50%, respectively. Furthermore, the exergy analysis is then derived and forecasted, and the exergy efficiency of the proposed system is 47.22%. The results show that the proposed CAES has more performance advantages than Huntorf CAES (the first CAES plant in the world). Techno-economic analysis of the coal-fired CAES shows that the cost of electricity (COE) is $106.33/MWh, which is relatively high in the rapidly developing power market. However, CAES will be more likely to be competitive if the power grid is improved and suitable geographical conditions for storage caverns are satisfied. This research provides a new approach for developing CAES in China.