Liquid air energy storage (LAES) is a technology for bulk electricity storage in the form of liquid air with power output potentially above 10MW and storage capacity of 100 s MWh. In this paper, we address the performance of LAES and the experimental evidences gathered through the first LAES pilot plant in the world developed by Highview power storage at Slough (London) and currently installed at the University of Birmingham (UK). We developed a numerical model of LAES plant and carried out an experimental campaign to gather new results which show the LAES operating principles, the reliability of the technology, the startup/shut down performance, and the influence of operational parameters. In summary, this work (a) contributes to the advancement of thermomechanical storage systems, (b) provides new experimental evidences and results for LAES technology, and (c) highlights the crucial aspects to necessarily improve the performance of LAES.

Air conditioning system in transport applications is a great challenge due to the frequently fluctuated load which causes comfort degradation and even healthy concern. In our previous study, a compact energy storage device filled with PCM was designed and experimentally tested which showed great potential for thermal comfort improvement and efficiency improvement. In this study, charging properties of the energy storage device for train air conditioning systems are experimentally investigated. Time evolutions of PCM temperature during the charging process are presented. The charging performances including charging time, transient charging rate, thermal efficiency and exergy efficiency are revealed. The results show that the designed device has excellent heat transfer behaviors with exergy efficiency up to 78%. The designed device is feasible to be used in transport air conditioning systems due to the quick charging.

Liquid air energy storage (LAES) is a novel technology for grid scale electrical energy storage in the form of liquid air. At commercial scale LAES rated output power is expected in the range 10 to 100 MWe, while the storage capacity of the order of 100s of MWhe. LAES comprises three processes: charging, consisting in air liquefaction; storage, involving preservation of air in liquid form; and discharge, consisting in evaporation and expansion of liquid air to produce electricity. Compared to pumped-hydro and compressed air energy storage, LAES has no orographic constrains and employs “off-shelf” components commercially available. In this paper we present the results gathered during the operation of the first LAES pilot plant currently installed at the University of Birmingham (UK). The pilot plant has a rated power of 350 kWe and an energy capacity of 2.5 MWh. It comprises key components including an hot thermal energy storage, used to recover waste heat, and an high grade cold thermal store to recycle cold thermal energy. We show both charging/discharging dynamics and illustrate the lessons learn from field operation of the pilot plant.

Amorphous hydrogen separation membranes are under development because of their resistance to hydrogen embrittlement, improved mechanical properties, resistance to corrosion and most importantly lower intrinsic cost. The Closed Field Unbalanced Magnetron Sputter Ion Plating (CFUBMSIP) is a versatile technique for deposition of high quality thin-films of almost any composition, while enabling the control of film size, thickness and shape. In this work, it was demonstrated that thin-films (similar to 3-6 mu m) of amorphous Zr40.5Ni59.5, Zr54Cu46 and Zr30Cu57.5Y12.5 could be deposited onto glass substrates by the CFUBMSIP technique. XRD measurements only showed one broad peak for each alloy, with a peak centred between 36 degrees and 42 degrees 2 theta, indicating that the films were amorphous. Surface analysis by SEM and confocal microscopy suggest deposition of continuous films. The thermal stability of the films appears to be mainly governed by the alloying elements and their compositions. However, the measured activation energies indicated that the nucleation and growth mechanism in the magnetron sputtered films may be different from that reported for melt-spun amorphous alloys with similar compositions. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.