Launch of Salt Caverns to transform renewable energy storage in the US.

US has announced a new project to store energy. Advanced Clean Energy Storage is launched in Utah. The project is a product of a consortium of partners, including Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems. It has been designed to store energy in a salt cavern.

According to reports, the $1bn project will be able to store 1,000MW in wind and solar power. It will be in form of compressed air or in the form of hydrogen.

A statistics report published by the Carnegie Mellon University determines, a decrease in carbon emissions in the US energy sector by 30% since 2005. This has been possible due to a combination of natural gas and renewable energy sources which have replaced coal-fired power plants.

Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) created a gas turbine technology which helped natural gas and hydrogen to generate power with lower emissions. However, the production of renewable energy is greater than the demand for electricity in some parts of Western US. This has led to generation of negative energy pricing and developed restrictions on the generation of renewable sources. In order to keep the renewable energy source usable in the long-term, it is required to store the excess power. Hence the necessity of a large storage capacity in order to meet the demands of Western US.

The Advanced Clean Energy Storage (ACES) project in Utah is therefore seen as a potential solution to the issue. The project aims to create 1,000MW of clean energy storage. The plan is regarded as world’s largest of its kind.

Reports suggest, the project will initially create an energy store necessary for 150,000 households for a year. Later it will help in generating four types of clean energy storage. These include renewable hydrogen, solid oxide fuel cells, compressed air energy storage and large scale flow batteries.

6 September 2019

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