Turning Compressed Air Into Energy.mov

Located in McIntosh, Ala., PowerSouth's McIntosh Power Plant currently includes four natural-gas fired combustion turbines and the United States' only Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) unit.

The Plant's first two natural-gas units went commercial in 1998, with a capacity of 240 megawatts. The second set of two natural-gas units went commercial in 2010, with a capacity of 360 megawatts. The CAES facility has a capacity of 110 megawatts. Total plant capacity is 710 megawatts -- enough electricity to power approximately 710,000 homes.

The natural-gas fired, simple-cycle units are classified as peaking units. They are designed to provide additional electricity to the PowerSouth system during "peak" usage periods — usually short periods of time during early morning or evening hours. The McIntosh Plant's turbines and generators offer simple-cycle technology with short start-up time, making them suitable for continuous, peaking and emergency operation.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• air
• PowerSouth
• CAES
• Compressed Air
• Generation
• Technology

[blueenergyshowtime]

I did a simple caculation. The energy output with rated plant capacity and maximum 26 hours operation will be 6E10KJ. The energy of compressed air at rated storage pressure and rated operation temperature wil be 7.2E9KJ. The question is, how much fuel is used for heating up the compressed air? Because you can see the figure doesn't make sense.