Citation: Rajabdorri, M.; Sigrist, L.;
Lobato, E. Liquid Air Energy Storage
Model for Scheduling Purposes in
Island Power Systems. Energies 2022,
15, 6958. https://doi.org/
10.3390/en15196958
Academic Editors: Thomas
Kienberger and Sonja Wogrin
Received: 5 September 2022
Accepted: 20 September 2022
Published: 22 September 2022
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energies
Article
Liquid Air Energy Storage Model for Scheduling Purposes in
Island Power Systems
Mohammad Rajabdorri * , Lukas Sigrist and Enrique Lobato
Instituto de Investigación Tecnológica (IIT), Universidad Pontificia Comillas, 28015 Madrid, Spain
* Correspondence: mrajabdorri@comillas.edu
Abstract: Moving towards clean energy generation seems essential. To do so, renewable energy
penetration is growing in the power systems. Although energy sources such as wind and solar
are clean, they are not available consistently. Using energy storage will help to tackle variability.
Liquid air energy storage is gaining attention among different energy storage technologies, as it is a
promising option for grid-scale energy storage. This paper presents a detailed mixed integer linear
model of liquid air energy storage to be used in scheduling and planning problems. A comprehensive
cycle diagram of different processes of liquid air energy storage is presented, and a model has been
developed accordingly. Simulations of the proposed model are carried out for the power system of
Tenerife island and compared with the basic models. Basic models overlook specific characteristics of
liquid air energy storage systems, such as charging and discharging start energy. Results confirm that
the use of simple models will lead to misleading conclusions and overestimate the economic benefits
of liquid air energy storage.
Keywords: LAES; energy storage; renewable generation; unit commitment problem
1. Introduction
Generating electricity has been reliant on burning fuels for decades. Although thermal
generation is cheap, it emits a considerable amount of greenhouse gasses, which have
negative environmental impacts. To go towards cleaner ways of generating electricity,
the share of renewable energy sources (RES) is increasing in the power systems in the recent
decades. Contrary to the thermal generation that can provide as much as it is demanded,
renewable sources only produce energy when they are available. The abundance of avail-
able renewable energy might happen in low-demand hours, or there might be a lack of
renewable production in high-demand hours. To use available RES more efficiently, it is
wise to store energy when there is a surplus and inject it when required.
Different types of energy storage systems (ESS) are used in the power system, including
electrochemical and battery, thermochemical, flywheel, compressed air, liquid air, magnetic,
etc. [1]. There is a wide range of benefits that can be expected from energy storage systems,
including load balance when the demand changes, providing additional energy to end-
users during overload situations, and storing the excess energy of RES to minimize CO
2
emission [2]. In [3], a demand management model for industrial parks considering the
integrated demand response of combined heat and power (CHP) units and thermal storage
is proposed to reduce the peak demand charge.
Among different technologies, liquid air energy storage (LAES) seems promising for
large-scale energy storage. Chemical energy storage systems, such as batteries, have the
highest efficiency, but their short lifetime makes them expensive. In addition, they should
be recycled when their life is over, which has negative environmental impacts. Large-scale
mechanical storage systems such as pumped hydroelectric energy storage (PHES) and
compressed air energy storage (CAES) have geographical limitations, as they need big
vessels or underground caverns. These disadvantages of other technologies have led LAES
Energies 2022, 15, 6958. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15196958 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/energies