Performance analysis of diabatic compressed air energy storage (D-CAES) system

Compressed air energy storage (CAES) system can storage electricity with compressed air as working medium. In this paper, the performance of the diabatic CAES (D-CAES) system based on Huntorf plant is numerically investigated by analyzing the effects of some key parameters such as the gradient utilization of the pressure in cavern and the waste heat recovery of the system. The simulation results indicate that the output power of the turbine train can be improved with gradient utilization of the pressure in cavern. More power is generated with higher entrance temperature of low pressure turbine. But the needed thermal energy from fossil fuel for heating compressed air is increased. The performance of the system is improved obviously by means of recovering the waste heat from the exhaust air from low pressure turbine to preheat the compressed air.