Compressed Air Energy Storage in Salt Caverns

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As renewable resources such wind and solar are increasingly integrated into the power grid, the intermittentand dispersed nature of these resources is having a significant impact on the reliability and resilience of the gridsystem. A storage medium not only can facilitate renewables integration, but can also help address thebalancing of local and regional generation sources, and can reduce the level of base load need. Cost-effectiveenergy storage on a large scale is necessary to improve overall performance and enhance reliability of the grid.We propose Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) in Salt Caverns in Canada as a promising option toenable a large share of renewable energy generation into the power grid.Through the National Research Council Canada, the Canadian government has established the Energy Storagefor Grid Security and Modernization Initiative. The Ontario government, in its Long-Term Energy Plan, is alsocommitted to address regulatory barriers that limit the ability of energy storage technologies to compete inOntario's electricity market. By the end of 2014, the government will include storage technologies in itsprocurement process, starting with 50MW and assessing additional engagement on an ongoing basis.For successful commercialization of CAES in Canada on a grid-wide basis, we propose salt caverns as themost suitable geological medium and it is present in bedded form in southwest Ontario and east-centralAlberta. Suitable salt strata for CAES are also present in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan. Thedomains of this research project include: geoscience and geotechnical analysis of cavern design including thenovel concept of long galleries dissolved in salt, thermo-mechanical assessment of turbine operation, designand cycling, including heat scavenging, and grid integration modeling to assess scale effects of storage facilitiesand locations on variable generation (intermittent input in terms of time and magnitude) and capability for