Dynamic modelling and techno-economic analysis of adiabatic compressed air energy storage for emergency back-up power in supporting microgrid

Adiabatic compressed air energy storage technology recently attracts a great attention due to its merits of low cost, long lifetime and environmentally friendly. Several MW scale pilot plants were recently built to explore the technology deployment potential. With the encouragement of the success of these pilot plants, this paper presents the recent research in dynamic modelling and comprehensive techno-economic analysis of adiabatic compressed air energy storage in providing emergency back-up power to support microgrid operation. The dynamic modelling for key components of a MW scale adiabatic compressed air energy storage plant and the associated microgrid is carried out. The models developed are used for analyzing the system dynamic performance while it provides emergency back-up power. Then, the economic benefit estimation model is developed for conducting a comprehensive economic analysis in order to understand the economic gains of adiabatic compressed air energy storage operation with different microgrid configurations, power supply reliabilities and diesel prices. The simulation results indicate that the MW scale adiabatic compressed air energy storage can normally fully restore the power supply to important loads within several minutes. It is acceptable for the load with no strict requirement on power outage time, but its standalone operation cannot meet the requirement of uninterruptable power source. For a microgrid having low power supply reliability requirement, high diesel price and abundant renewable energy sources, using adiabatic compressed air energy storage for providing emergency back-up power can achieve higher economic benefits compared with diesel generators.