Developing Cryogenic Energy Storage at Refrigerated Warehouses as an Interactive Hub to Integrate Renewable Energy in Industrial Food Refrigeration and to Enhance PowerGrid Sustainability

Solutions developed

One method to balance the issue of generation and demand is to store energy during periods of low demand and use it at times when there is high demand.
Cryogenic storage makes use of low-temperature liquids (such as liquid air or liquid nitrogen) as an energy storage and transfer medium. Cryogenic storage can provide large scale, long duration energy storage. The prime objective of the CryoHub project is to investigate the potential of large-scale LAES (Liquid Air Energy Storage) at refrigerated warehouses and food factories and to use the stored energy for providing both cooling on site and electrical energy generation during peak demand periods.

Main results

1. To provide large scale energy storage to aid grid balancing on daily and weekly timescales (take grid energy when there is too much and put in energy when there is not enough).
2. To store energy from local intermittent RES (Renewable Energy Sources) before supplying to the grid.
3. To ‘peak shave’ (i.e. remove the peak power requirement from the grid) refrigerated warehouse/food factory energy use and at the same time generate and supply part of the required peak energy back to the grid.
4. To provide free cooling to the cold stores during power generation.
5. To decarbonise the electricity grid.
By utilising LAES there are considerable benefits in being able to use low carbon resources more effectively.