A small-scale CAES (compressed air energy storage) system for stand-alone renewable energy power plant for a radio base station: A sizing-design methodology

In this paper, a novel CAES system (compressed air energy storage) is proposed as a suitable technology for the energy storage in a small scale stand-alone renewable energy power plant (photovoltaic power plant) that is designed to satisfy the energy demand of a radio base station for mobile telecommunications. The innovation introduced in this study concerns two aspects: the first one is the using of a small-scale CAES system integrated with a TES (thermal energy storage) unit with inter-cooling compression and inter-heating expansion; the second one is the cooling energy production, that is obtained by the cold air (3 degrees C) at the turbine outlet of the CAES system. For this reason, the storage system is defined a PSS-CAES (Polygeneration Small-Scale Compressed Air Energy Storage) system. In this paper, a sizing-design methodology of the energy power plant has been illustrated and the overall performance has been calculated. Results have highlighted that the storage system has an efficiency equal to 57%, that is an interesting value considering its small size. Moreover, the contribution of the PSS-CAES unit on the cooling energy requirements results equal to 17% with reference to the cooling energy required in the hours in which it works. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.