In a press release issued by the UK’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy – dated June 18, 2020, it was announced that the government had awarded £10 million for a cutting-edge electricity storage facility, known as CryoBattery.
The battery is being developed by Carlton Highview Storage, a partnership between UK independent power station developer Carlton Power and long-term energy storage firm Highview Power Storage. Besides creating 200 new jobs, the CryoBattery will store enough electricity to power 200,000 homes.
The Highview battery will store 250MWh of energy, almost double the amount stored by the biggest chemical battery, built by Tesla in South Australia.
ICYMI: Highview Power has been awarded a £10 million grant from @beisgovuk to build a new cryogenic energy storage plant in Manchester, England. The facility will be the largest battery storage system in Europe & the first commercial CRYOBattery facility. #energystorage pic.twitter.com/j79GQqySgJ
— Highview Power (@HighviewPower) June 19, 2020
Highview chief executive Javier Cavada told The Guardian that liquid air batteries could be built anywhere.
“Air is everywhere in the world. The main competitor is really not other storage technologies but fossil fuels, as people still want to continue building gas and coal-fired plants today, strangely enough,” he said.
EcoWatch is reporting that Carlton Power chief executive Keith Clarke said his company looked at several energy storage solutions and settled on Highview’s “because it is scalable, clean, can deliver the grid services we need, and can be deployed now.”
Storage of excess energy that can be used at a later time is essential when using wind and solar energy – CryoBattery will provide flexibility and a way to store energy longer compared to traditional lithium batteries.
The CryoBattery works by using electricity to cool and compress air, turning it into a liquid and storing it in industrial-sized containers. It then feeds the liquid through a turbine, turning it back into electricity and pumping it back into the grid when it is needed.
“Projects like these will help us realize the full value of our world-class renewables, ensuring homes and businesses can still be powered by green energy, even when the sun is not shining and the wind not blowing,” The UK’s energy and clean growth minister, Kwasi Kwarteng said.
About Highview Power
Highview Power is a designer and developer of the CRYOBattery™, a proprietary cryogenic energy storage system that delivers reliable and cost-effective long-duration energy storage to enable a 100 percent renewable energy future.
The company is headquartered in London, UK, and New York City in the United States. It has over 30 patents developed in partnership with British universities. And in February 2020, Tokyo, Japan-based Sumitomo Heavy Industries invested $46 million in the company.
Highview Power uses low-cost electricity to cool air to -196 °C, reducing it to a liquid 1/700th the volume. At times of high demand for electricity, when prices are typically high, the liquid is expanded through a turbine to generate electricity, free of combustion and the resultant emissions.
