Performance Analysis of a Diabatic Compressed Air Energy Storage System Fueled with Green Hydrogen

The integration of an increasing share of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) requires the availability of suitable energy storage systems to improve the grid flexibility and Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) systems could be a promising option. In this study, a CO2-free Diabatic CAES system is proposed and analyzed. The plant configuration is derived from a down-scaled version of the McIntosh Diabatic CAES plant, where the natural gas is replaced with green hydrogen, produced on site by a Proton Exchange Membrane electrolyzer powered by a photovoltaic power plant. In this study, the components of the hydrogen production system are sized to maximize the self-consumption share of PV energy generation and the effect of the design parameters on the H2-CAES plant performance are analyzed on a yearly basis. Moreover, a comparison between the use of natural gas and hydrogen in terms of energy consumption and CO2 emissions is discussed. The results show that the proposed hydrogen fueled CAES can effectively match the generation profile and the yearly production of the natural gas fueled plant by using all the PV energy production, while producing zero CO2 emissions.