The energy revolution involves achieving huge amounts of energy storage, which cushions the intermittent production of electrical sources. There is talk of huge lithium battery installations, but there is no stable supply of this mineral, which is already rising in price. But there are other avenues coming from China, like the 100 MW, 400 MWh vanadium flow battery in Dailan… or this new clean compressed air energy storage facility in Zhangjiakou, the largest and most efficient system ever connected to a electrical network.
This city in northern China starts an energy revolution in the country, energy storage at a relatively low cost without using. China also plans to rely heavily on compressed air energy storage (CAES), according to the Asia Times, for about a quarter of the country’s energy storage by 2030.
After several years of development in the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the first advanced CAES system has been connected to the network. They call it “advanced”, by the way, to distinguish it from the McIntosh Plant that has been in operation since 1991 in Alabama, a 110 MW CAES facility that burns stored air with natural gas to recover energy (so it is not clean energy).
The Zhangjiakou plant phases out fossil fuels, using advances in thermal storage, heat exchange, high-head compression, and expansion technologies to increase system efficiency. According to the China Energy Storage Alliance, the new plant can store and release up to 400 MWh, with a system efficiency of 70.4%.
This figure is a real outrage. Current compressed air systems are only around 40-52% efficient, and even the two plants scheduled to open in California in 2026 advertise around 60% efficiency.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences says the Zhangjiakou plant can supply the local grid with more than 132 GWh of electricity a year, the consumption of some 60,000 households. It is equivalent to taking 23,700 American cars off the road and saves 42,000 tons of coal from being burned. They also indicate that it will have a long useful life and the design is safe and efficient. They call it “one of the most promising technologies for large-scale energy storage.” Hopefully it is and spread the example.