Carbon Dioxide Being Used For Energy Storage 

2 min read

Milan based company, Energy Dome, has built a carbon dioxide battery to store large amounts of energy from solar, wind and other renewable energy. The CO2 battery system works as follows:

1. When charging, the system takes CO2 gas from the Dome and compresses it.
2. CO2 is condensed and stored under pressure at ambient temperature.
3. When discharging, the liquid CO2 is evaporated.
4. The CO2 gas now powers a turbine which generates electricity and feeds it into the grid.
5. The remaining CO2 is stored safely in the Dome to be used again.

https://energydome.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/EnergyDome_CO2Battery_Def.mp4

The current pilot plan has a capacity of 4 MWh and is rated for a capacity of 2,5 MW, which is enough to power 4 400 Italian homes for 1,5 hours. Their larger official plant which is expected to go online in 2023, is expected to have a 200 MWh battery, with the ability to output 20 MW, enough to power 350 000 Italian homes for an hour.

Energy Dome claims an efficiency rate of 75%, compared to 50% of air compressed systems, 85% of hydropower systems, and 15-20% of solar panels. According to Energy Dome CEO, Claudio Spadacini, the Levelized Cost Of Storage (LCOS) for a 25 MW / 200 MWh carbon plant will be between $50 and $60 per MWh of stored energy. For comparison, the LCOS of a 100 MW / 400 MWh lithium-ion battery plant is between $131 and $232 per MWh, with compressed air storage systems going up to $300 per MWh.

Advantages of the CO2 battery

• Uses easily sourced materials (water, steel and CO2) only.
• Primarily uses standard equipment such as pumps, compressors and generator turbines.
• CO2 can be liquefied at air temperatures making it less energy intensive and cheaper, unlike air which can only be liquefied at -196ᵒC.
• Uses the heat recovered from compressing the CO2 into gas while charging, to evaporate the CO2 liquid while discharging, making it highly efficient, and thus, more cost effective than air compressed batteries which use additional heat to liquefy air.
• Materials and components can be found anywhere in the world, making it universally scalable.
• Not constrained to supply chains unlike lithium because the materials can be sourced anywhere in the world.
• High energy storage density, meaning more energy can be stored in smaller batteries.
• Estimated 30-year life.

This carbon battery technology is important because renewable energy needs to be stored, especially in times of maximum production, so that it can be used at a later stage.

It should not be long before other companies replicate and improve this technology. Carbon batteries will also fuel the carbon capture industry, reducing CO2 emissions while adding economic expansion. Many experts argue that using carbon batteries still won’t be cheaper than producing CO2 through the traditional use of greenhouse gases, though. They also caution against getting too excited about this technology as it is relatively new and has yet to be tested at a large scale. This, however, has not stopped Danish energy company, Ørsted, from entering into a partnership with Energy Dome concerning a 20 MW / 200 MWh carbon dioxide battery dome to be built in 2024.

What are do you think of the carbon dioxide battery? Do you think it will be one of the most widely used energy storage technologies in the near future? Share your thoughts by replying to this email!

For more information on carbon dioxide battery, or any other energy related articles, view the blog posts on my website and be sure to open my weekly emails every Tuesday at 9AM CAT.

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