Utilization of CO₂ as cushion gas for porous media compressed air energy storage

Abstract

Porous media compressed air energy storage (PM-CAES) and geologic carbon sequestration (GCS) can potentially be combined when CO 2 is used as the cushion gas. The large increase in density of CO 2 around its critical pressure at near-critical temperature means that a PM-CAES reservoir operated around the CO 2 critical pressure could potentially store more air (energy) for a given pressure rise in the reservoir. One-dimensional (1D) radial TOUGH2 simulations of PM-CAES with CO 2 as the cushion gas have been carried out to investigate pressurization and gasgas mixing effects. We find that pervasive pressure gradients in PM-CAES make it desirable to position the air-CO 2 interface close to the well, but cushion gas at such locations is subject to strong and undesirable air-CO 2 mixing and subsequent production of CO 2 up the well. To avoid this negative effect, CO 2 cushion gas should be located at the far outer margins of storage reservoirs where mixing will be very slow. In such a configuration, the super-compressibility of CO 2 will not be exploited, but CO 2 can be stored in the GCS context potentially earning significant value for the PM-CAES project depending on the price of carbon.2

Geological storage of captured carbon dioxide as a large‐scale carbon mitigation option

“…Another potential area for large-scale CCS implementation is in the context of dispatchable energy to deal with intermittency of renewables such as wind and solar. Integration of CCS could be part of a more creative set of strategies involving broader approaches to subsurface energy storage and management [Bourcier et al, 2011;Buscheck et al, 2012Buscheck et al, , 2013Buscheck et al, , 2014Oldenburg and Pan, 2013]. Furthermore, future negative emissions scenarios often include CCS as an essential component [Tollefson, 2015;Rockstrom et al, 2017].…”

Application of proxy model to optimize base gas replacement by smart gas in underground gas storage process

“…One way to reduce this cost is to replace a part of the base gas with the less expensive gas such as nitrogen or carbon dioxide [9]. This replacement can affect the produced gas quality due to the mixing between the replaced base gas and the working gas [10]. The mixing amount of the gases should be controlled.…”

“…Kilincer and Gumrah [15] studied the replacement of base gas and mixing problems in a depleted gas reservoir by coupling a 2-D reservoir simulator and the transfer model. Oldenburg [10] investigated the replacement of base gas with carbon dioxide in a part of a depleted gas reservoir. In 1995, the Wierzchowice low-quality reservoir, including 29% nitrogen, 70% methane and 1% C 2 + , was changed to a natural gas storage reservoir [16].…”

Numerical Investigation of the Influences of Wellbore Flow on Compressed Air Energy Storage in Aquifers

“…The feasibility of CAESA was investigated by Oldenburg and Pan using numerical modelling, which showed its energy efficiency well using the operation scheme in the Huntorf plant [15]. Later, they proposed and simulated the utilization of CO 2 as a cushion gas for a CAESA system [16]. The impact factors on the variances of pressure and temperature have been studied, including the reservoir permeability, gas bubble volume, gas bubble boundary permeability, and geological structures and thicknesses [17][18][19].…”