Can Industrial Refrigeration Be Used to Store Electricity?

The School of The Built Environment and Architecture at London South Bank University (LSBU) recently received a research grant to study cryogenic energy storage (CES), a new technology that could help us store surplus renewable energy.

According to an article published by ACHR News, as energy increasingly comes from renewable sources, like solar and wind, there's also an elevated risk for fluctuations in supply. That's because weather patterns can be unpredictable.

As it stands, we don't have an effective way to store energy from periods of high production. However, that could all change if LSBU's research project, dubbed CryoHub, has a breakthrough. Professor Judith Evans explains how CES could be used to create and store electricity:

CES essentially uses cheap, off-peak electricity to convert air into a liquid, which can then be stored over a long period of time in a storage vessel. Turning the liquid back to gas, by removing it from the store and applying heat to it, will produce a huge increase in volume and pressure — enough to power a turbine to generate electricity which can then be supplied back to the grid.

Because the liquid can be taken out of storage on demand, the technology can be used to restore electricity to the grid when energy demand is predicted to outstrip supply. It could also be used locally, also saving grid energy. CES is therefore a great complement to renewable energy sources, as it effectively safeguards against any periods of intermittent supply and helps to stabilize the energy grid.

The goal is to improve CES efficiency and make rolling it out on a large scale more feasible. To achieve this objective, CryoHub is looking to integrate it with "pre-existing large refrigeration facilities found in industrial refrigeration warehouses and food processing plants." The union may be able to enhance CES performance.