Undeveloped small hydropower generation sites are abundant throughout the water conveyance infrastructure and natural rivers in the United States. Due to its small scale, micro-hydro development requires substantial upfront capital costs, maintenance and operation costs for customized engineering and construction. The significant investments required for developing small hydropower are inhibiting for utilities, residential and commercial users to adopt. An inexpensive energy storage system and a well-designed power controls system can be integrated with small hydropower sites to increase its cost-effectiveness and reliability. This paper introduces the concept of storing low-power generated from small hydro turbines during long off-peak periods and dispatching at high-power as grid-quality electricity during peak periods. The use of an ultra-low cost thermal energy storage (ULCTES) system is examined. Boosting the power output for small hydro generation allows commercial users to avoid significant demand charges during operation, making small hydro an attractive cost saving strategy and therefore breaking down the cost barrier. The ULCTES operates much like a bulk power production unit and a peaker plant, in which it is capable of dispatching constant power over a long period during peak periods when conventional sources are unavailable. Improvements in system reliability and economic value are evaluated using microgrid optimization software HOMER Energy. In particular, two cases are studied with variations in types of end users and energy management goals. Energy costs savings, demand charges savings and renewable energy penetration are determined. Distributed energy storage systems are shown to reduce energy costs and increase the renewable energy penetration for commercial users. With ULCTES, microgrids have the flexibility to manage fluctuating renewable energy generation as well as respond to rapidly changing loads on a daily basis. A larger hydroelectricity system is shown to be more feasible with distributed energy storage systems for isolated users without any connection to the grid.

Human activity is overloading our atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other global warming emissions. These emissions trap heat, increase the planet’s temperature, and create significant health, environmental, and climate issues. Electricity production accounts for more than one-third of U.S. global warming emissions, with the majority generated by coal-fired power plants. These plants produce approximately 25 percent of total U.S. global warming emissions. In contrast, most renewable energy sources produce little to no global warming emissions. Unfortunately, generated electricity from renewable sources rarely provides immediate response to electrical demands, as the sources of generation do not deliver a regular supply easily adjustable to consumption needs. This has led to the emergence of storage as a crucial element in the management of energy, allowing energy to be released into the grid during peak hours and meet electrical demands. Compressed air energy storage can potentially allow renewable energy sources to meet electricity demands as reliably as coal-fired power plants. Most compressed air energy storage systems run at very high pressures, which possess inherent problems such as equipment failure, high cost, and inefficiency. This research aims to illustrate the potential of compressed air energy storage systems by illustrating two different discharge configurations and outlining key variables, which have a major impact on the performance of the storage system. Storage efficiency is a key factor to making renewable sources an independent form of sustainable energy. In this paper, a comprehensive thermodynamic analysis of a compressed air energy storage system is presented. Specifically, a detailed study of the first law of thermodynamics of the entire system is presented followed by a thorough analysis of the second law of thermodynamics of the complete system. Details of both discharge and charge cycles of the storage system are presented. The first and second law based efficiencies of the system are also presented along with parametric studies, which demonstrates the effects of various thermodynamic cycle variables on the total round-trip efficiency of compressed air energy storage systems.

The share of renewable energy sources in the power grid is showing an increasing trend world-wide. Most of the renewable energy sources are intermittent and have generation peaks that do not correlate with peak demand. The stability of the power grid is highly dependent on the balance between power generation and demand. Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) systems have been utilized to receive and store the electrical energy from the grid during off-peak hours and play the role of an auxiliary power plant during peak hours. Using Thermal Energy Storage (TES) systems with CAES technology is shown to increase the efficiency and reduce the cost of generated power. In this study, a modular solid-based TES system is designed to store thermal energy converted from grid power. The TES system stores the energy in the form of internal energy of the storage medium up to 900 K. A three-dimensional computational study using commercial software (ANSYS Fluent) was completed to test the performance of the modular design of the TES. It was shown that solid-state TES, using conventional concrete and an array of circular fins with embedded heaters, can be used for storing heat for a high temperature hybrid CAES (HTH-CAES) system.