Work is starting in Manchester on MW scale liquid air to power system , designed by a inventor not from a university or academic institution , basic principals seem to be electricity is used to liquify air down to -197oC and the heat from this stored at around 110oC , the liquid air is held in cryogenic tanks and then when needed to generate electricity, the hot side is used to heat the liquid air , expanding it by 700 times in volume , this expansion then drives turbine and gen set.
At 20 yrs expected life of plant , no harmful emissions and ability to be a cheaper alternative to most battery technologies ,it looks a really interesting choice for eco thinkers and inventor did really interesting thing of storing the heat from compression , i like it had ability to use other heat sources also,, quoted efficiency is 60% which perhaps needs to improve because in one way its consuming electricity , however its biggest marketing aspect is that it can use surplus (mostly night time) cheap electricity, which is interesting as this electricity must be really cheap if your plant in one way is losing 40% of iit every cycle, whilst I dont think the media have been duped in giving it so much praise , one remark i herd is why not give people cheap night time electricity or isn,t this a device for making cheap electricity more costly ???
that aside i do see some uses for liquid air , be useful in some off grid scenarios , in a simpler format , could certainly heat a home at night , maybe an air conditioner supplimentary heat energy source ??
only data i cant find is how many kw it takes to make a kg of liquid air ??? if any one knows
