A compressed air energy storage (CAES) project in Hubei, China, has come online, with 300MW/1,500MWh of capacity.

The 5-hour duration project, called Hubei Yingchang, was built in two years with a total investment of CNY1.95 billion (US$270 million) and uses abandoned salt mines in the Yingcheng area of Hubei, China’s sixth-most populous province.

It is the largest grid-connected CAES project of its size in the world, engineering firm China Energy Engineering Corporation claimed in its announcement of the project (or specifically, the first in the world of that scale).

The project is owned by China Energy Construction Digital Group and State Grid Hubei Integrated Energy Services Co. Both China Energy Engineering Corporation and China Energy Construction Digital Group are part of government-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

The project was built three to four times quicker than a pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) plant would need (6-8 years), China Energy Engineering added.

CAES technology works by pressurising and funnelling air into a storage medium to charge the system, and discharges by releasing the air through a heating system to expand it, which turns a turbine generator.


https://www.energy-storage.news/worlds-largest-compressed-air-energy-storage-project-connects-to-the-grid-in-china/