Performance and economy of trigenerative adiabatic compressed air energy storage system based on multi-parameter analysis

• Published in: Energy (Oxford) Vol. 238; p. 121695
• Main Authors: Du, Ruxue, He, Yang, Chen, Haisheng, Xu, Yujie, Li, Wen, Deng, Jianqiang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.01.2022; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Adiabatic; Adiabatic flow; Adjustment; Compressed air; Compression; Compression stages; Configurations; Cooling; Economic analysis; Economic conditions; Electricity; Energy output; Energy storage; Expansion; Expansion stages; Flow rates; Heat storage; Heating; Mass flow rate; Thermal storage; Trigenerative ACAES; Trigenerative ACAES; Adjustment; Thermal storage; Expansion stages; Compression stages
• ISSN: 0360-5442; 1873-6785
• DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2021.121695

The trigeneration combined the electricity, cooling and heating makes adiabatic compressed air energy storage system (ACAES) popular as an energy storage technology. Based on thermodynamic analysis, this paper studies the influence on the system performance of four variable factors, including compression stages, expansion stages, water (heat storage medium) mass flow rates in charging process and discharging process to provide a guidance for the design of ACAES for different user demand. The results show that changing these four factors can achieve different energy output distributions in a very wide range (power supply ratio is 0.50–0.86, heating output ratio is 0.00–0.39, cooling supply ratio is 0.00–0.41). Simulation results also indicate that fewer compression and expansion stages are suggested for the cases requiring shorter running time. Furthermore, according to this study, less compression stages than expansion is good for electricity generation and more compression stages is good for cooling supply. And for large heating supply demand, less compression is suggest. Besides, the energy efficiencies for different configurations of trigenerative ACAES are also achieved which are changed from 0.62 to 0.87 and the best configurations with highest system efficiency are also presented. Finally, by economic analysis, the most economic condition is achieved. •Single ACAES is used for trigenerative application to meet different energy demands.•Thermodynamic, exergy and economic analysis are used to perform the trigenerative application.•The energy efficiency of trigenerative ACAES is changed from 0.62 to 0.87.•The payback period of trigenerative ACAES is 3.4–6.8 years with different configurations.•The design guidance of compression stage, expansion stage, thermal storage are provided.