[co-author: Oretha A. Manu]
Hydrostor Receives Funding for Utility-Scale A-CAES Facility
On 15 April, Hydrostor announced receipt of nearly US$4 million in funding from Natural Resources Canada’s Energy Innovation Program and Sustainable Development Technology to develop a 300-500 megawatt (MW) Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage (A-CAES) facility. An A-CAES facility uses renewable energy or excess grid energy to compress air that is then funneled into underground caverns, displacing water and creating storage capacity. This process creates heat that is captured and stored to reheat the compressed air when energy demand exceeds supply.
This funding will subsidize design and engineering work at the new facility. The goal is to provide up to 12 hours of long-duration energy storage in Canada. Hydrostar is currently developing a 500 MW A-CAES facility in Southern California to provide on-demand peaking capacity for 12 hours of duration once it becomes operational in 2024.