Highview Power Storage, a UK based designer and developer of liquid air energy storage (LAES) systems, has signed a licence agreement with US based clean coal technology provider, Advanced Emissions Solutions of Denver, Colorado. In addition to the licencing, AES Inc, through its subsidiary ADA-ES, has invested £1.75 million in Highview. The licence agreement is for grid-connected LAES non-peaker plant storage applications covering North America (US, Canada and Mexico). ADA-ES are broadening their offering with their investment in Highview at a time when energy storage is proving to have a significant role to play in the electricity market, to help balance electricity systems and support intermittent renewables.
Highview has operated a grid connected 350 kW/2.5 MWh pilot plant in Slough, in the UK, since 2010, and is now working on deploying a new pre-commercial 5MW demonstrator, to be based in Manchester, UK, in collaboration with energy and waste management company Viridor and the UK government's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
LAES technology, says Highview, can be scaled to deliver large-scale, long duration energy storage from around 5 MW output and 15 MWh of storage capacity to significantly more than 50 MW output and 200 MWh of capacity. It can be considered as being similar to medium scale pumped hydro-electricity storage, but without the geographical restrictions of mountains and reservoirs.
Dr Michael D. Durham, president and CEO of Advanced Emissions Solutions said, "We are very excited about working with Highview to bring this technology to markets in North America. As we looked for the best technology for large grid-scale energy storage, we concluded that the LAES technology had significant advantages for this market and that Highview was years ahead of anyone else pursuing this approach."
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