Liquid air energy storage demonstrator cuts cost of compressed air
A cement works in Staffordshire is hosting PRISMA, an industry-first application of liquid air energy storage technology.
PRISMA (Peak Reduction by Integrated Storage and Management of Air) has been developed by Glasgow-headquartered Innovatium in partnership with Birmingham University and has been described as a potential ‘game-changer’ alternative to traditional compressed air technologies.
PRISMA stores energy in liquid air form to provide compressed air, allowing inefficient partially loaded, variable-demand compressors to be turned off, which improves the total system efficiency by up to 25 per cent.
UK industry uses over 10TWh of electricity to compress air. PRISMA charges up using cheaper off-peak electricity creating a store of cold liquid air that can then be discharged to provide hours' worth of compressed air,
At Aggregate Industries’ Cauldon Cement Works, the PRISMA system brings together a latent energy cold storage tank, filled with a phase change material (PCM) to store thermal energy. Along with a number of off-the-shelf components, this forms a system that will work within Aggregate Industries’ existing compressed air network.
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