A-CAES Design and Feasibility Assessment Tools Development

Lead Proponent

Hydrostor Inc.

Project Objectives

This Project will advance progress toward the final step in the Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage (A-CAES) technology evolution. A-CAES is Hydrostor’s unique grid storage solution, which provides long-duration storage like pumped hydro, but has the key advantage of being able to be flexibly sited where the grid needs it, allowing the targeting of high-value and immediately available grid applications like transmission deferral and displacement of fossil-fuel based generation. The technology operates very similarly to a gas plant but is entirely non-emitting, is potentially much more cost-effective than batteries at scale with an estimated 50 year asset life and is ideally suited to providing the long-duration storage resource necessary for decarbonizing the grid.

The objective of this project is the development work associated with commercial projects at full-scale. This involves design optimizations, development work, creating and validating broad feasibility assessment tools, advancing control strategy and plant controls optimization, and optimizing the topside and subsurface design and full-scale design basis. This will result in a flexible reference design that will apply to A-CAES facilities going forward.

Expected Results

Expected results for the project include, increased readiness for wider deployment of a clean-energy technology, providing economic, health, and climate benefits through grid decarbonisation and increased resiliency options; job creation and employment of highly-skilled labour; and, development of a Canadian technology and related Intellectual Property with export potential.