Is 'liquid air' the future?

New method could finally answer question of how to store energy

The term ‘cryogenic-power’ may seem better placed in sci-fi films than in the real world, but the Institute of Mechanical Engineers believe they have made this idea a reality with their development of ‘liquid air’ technology.

IMechE have proposed the idea of using the excess energy generated by wind turbines at night (‘wrong-time’ energy) can be used to chill air to a liquid state. Then, when energy demands are higher, the ‘liquid air’ can be reheated until it becomes a vapour, which can then be used to drive turbines to generate electricity.

Not only would this solve the problems of energy storage and ‘wrong-time’ energy, but it could also help with the problems of industrial heat waste that is currently being released into the atmosphere, as these ‘cryo-generators’ could be built near power plants where they could reuse this left-over heat to warm the stored ‘liquid air’.

Engineers at IMechE believe that this method can be an efficiency level of up to 70% and can compete with hydrogen and batteries (that have an efficiency level of around 80%) to store excess energy generated by renewable energy forms.

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