Compressed air energy storage : Process review and case study of small scale compressed air energy storage aimed at residential buildings

Sammanfattning: The potential for electrical energy storage to both provide services to the electrical grid and help to better integrate renewable energies in the electrical system is promising. This report investigates one type of storage, compressed air energy storage (CAES), where energy is stored by compressing air during hours of low electricity demand and later expanding the air to generate electricity during high demand hours. To this day it exists two large plants, but small facilities have yet to be implemented, raising the question whether it could be viable to use CAES on a smaller scale as well. By creating a model of a CAES system based on the principles of thermodynamics and applying it to a hypothetical group of residences, its ability to balance daily fluctuations in electricity demand is explored. The result show that the system is able to cover some of the demand but there is no economic profit to be gained. The results of this report suggest that a CAES system of this size is not a viable option during current price market for electricity in Sweden but during other circumstances it could be relevant.