Exergy Analysis of Adiabatic Liquid Air Energy Storage (A-LAES) System Based on Linde-Hampson Cycle

Efficiently storing energy on a large scale poses a major challenge and one that is growing in importance with the increasing share of renewables in the energy mix. The only options at present are either pumped hydro or compressed air storage. One novel alternative is to store energy using liquid air, but this technology is not yet fully mature and requires substantial research and development, including in-depth energy and exergy analysis. This paper presents an exergy analysis of the Adiabatic Liquid Air Energy Storage (A-LAES) system based on the Linde-Hampson cycle. The exergy analysis was carried out for four cases with different parameters, in particular the discharge pressure of the air at the inlet of the turbine (20, 40, 100, 150 bar). The results of the analysis show that the greatest exergy destruction can be observed in the air evaporator and in the Joule-Thompson valve. In the case of air evaporator, the destruction of exergy is greatest for the lowest discharge pressure, i.e., 20 bar, and reaches over 118 MWh/cycle. It decreases with increasing discharge pressure, down to approximately 24 MWh/cycle for 150 bar, which is caused by a decrease in the heat of vaporization of air. In the case of Joule-Thompson valve, the changes are reversed. The highest destruction of exergy is observed for the highest considered discharge pressure (150 bar) and amounts to over 183 MWh/cycle. It decreases as pressure is lowered to 57.5 MWh/cycle for 20 bar. The other components of the system do not show exergy destruction greater than approximately 50 MWh/cycle for all considered pressures. Specific liquefaction work of the system ranged from 0.189 kWh/kgLA to 0.295 kWh/kgLA and the efficiency from 44.61% to 55.18%.

Automated summary

Efficiently storing energy on a large scale presents a major challenge, with pumped hydro and compressed air storage being the main options currently available. Liquid air energy storage is a novel alternative that requires further research and development, including in-depth energy and exergy analysis. The exergy analysis of an Adiabatic Liquid Air Energy Storage (A-LAES) system based on the Linde-Hampson cycle shows significant exergy destruction in the air evaporator and Joule-Thompson valve, with varying levels of destruction depending on discharge pressure.