POWER July 2013 - 14

it will use to build two planned nuclear reactors, one expected to
begin construction this year and be completed by 2020, and the
other for operation by 2025. Along with the ATMEA 1 design, Jordan
is evaluating AtomStroyExport's AES-92 model VVER-1000.
Energy Storage Developments and
Demand Ramp Up
Despite technical and financial hurdles, annual global demand for
grid-scale energy storage is expected to soar to 185.4 GWh by 2017,
which means a possible 231% average year-on-year demand growth
between 2012 and 2015, according to Lux Research. A report recently
released by the research firm projects that Japan, China, the UK,
Germany, and the state of Arizona will lead the world in grid storage,
accounting for about 58% of global demand in 2017.
By 2017, who uses energy storage will also vary, the firm forecasts,
projecting that ancillary services and renewable energy
integration will only account for 1.4% of global demand while
renewable energy time shifting will take up a 54% share. Among
technologies that will lead the surge in demand for energy storage
are vanadium redox batteries, followed by sodium-sulfur, sodiumnickel
chloride, and zinc-bromine flow batteries. Lithium-ion batteries
will take a smaller share, while flywheels will retain just 2%
of the market in 2017, Lux predicts. (See " Beacon Power Makes a
Comeback " on p. 53 for more on flywheel generation.)
The month of May alone saw several key developments for energy
storage. The U.S. Senate reintroduced bipartisan legislation that
would create an investment tax credit for energy storage technologies
of all types, closely mirroring a bill recently introduced in the
House. The Storage Technology for Renewable and Green Energy
(STORAGE) Act was originally introduced in the 112th Congress
in both chambers with bipartisan support. The measures follow
3. Hybrid geothermal compressed air storage. A site
identified by the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory (PNNL) and federal power company the Bonneville
Power Administration, called Yakima Minerals, is about 10 miles north
of Selah, Wash. It could house a geothermal compressed air energy
storage facility with a capacity to generate 83 MW and store 150 MW.
Courtesy: PNNL
legislation to provide Master Limited Partnership parity to extend
a pass-through corporate structure and tax treatment to several
renewables sectors as well as to energy storage.
Possible Compressed Air Energy Storage Sites. Also in
May, the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory (PNNL) and federal power company the Bonneville
Power Administration (BPA) said they identified two possible sites
in eastern Washington state to build compressed air energy storage
(CAES) facilities that could temporarily store the Northwest's
excess wind power. CAES plants use a large air compressor that is
powered when electricity production is abundant, which pushes
pressurized air into an underground geologic storage structure.
Later, when power demand is high, the stored air is released back
up to the surface, where it is heated and rushes through turbines
to generate electricity. CAES plants can regenerate as much as
80% of the electricity they take in, according to PNNL.
Only two CAES plants exist in the world today, however-one
in Alabama and one in Germany-and both use manmade salt
caverns to store excess electricity. The PNNL-BPA study examined
a different approach: using natural, porous rock reservoirs
that are deep underground to store renewable energy. Analysis
identified two particularly promising locations in eastern Washington.
One, dubbed the Columbia Hills Site, is just north of
Boardman, Ore., on the Washington side of the Columbia River
and has a storage capacity of 231 MW. The second, called the
Yakima Minerals Site, is about 10 miles north of Selah, Wash.,
in an area called the Yakima Canyon and has a storage capacity
of about 150 MW.
The Columbia Hills Site could access a nearby natural gas
pipeline, making it " a good fit for a conventional compressed
air energy facility. " Such a conventional facility would burn
a small amount of natural gas to heat compressed air that's
released from underground storage, PNNL said. The Yakima Minerals
Site, however, has little easy access to natural gas. So
the research team devised a hybrid facility that would extract
geothermal heat from deep underground to power a chiller that
would cool the facility's air compressors, making them more
efficient. Geothermal energy would also reheat the air as it
returns to the surface (Figure 3).
BPA is now expected to use the performance and economic
data from the study to perform an in-depth analysis of the net
benefits CAES could bring to the Pacific Northwest. The results
could be used by one or more regional utilities to develop a commercial
CAES demonstration project.
Compression & power
generation facility
4. A pilot project. The California Energy Commission and Pacific
Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) unveiled the Yerba Buena Battery Energy
Storage System Pilot Project, a system that charges a utility-scale sodium-sulfur
battery, shown here. Courtesy: PG&E
Geothermal
reservoir
Compressed
air reservoir
14
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POWER July 2013

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