Wind Power Storage Medium

Compress Air Energy Storage (CAES) is nothing new. Cars in India use it to move around, my paintball gun uses it to fire gelatins of paint, and you probably have a can of it for cleaning your keyboard.

Using compressed air to store electrical energy isn't unusual and it's particularly well suited to wind power. Funny, that, in a sort of compressed, ironic way. :)

Iowa plans to use this to store the abundant wind energy that state produces to save on the long-range transmission losses associated with wind energy now. Since wind energy has to be used when it's made, storage is the best plan: allowing the stuff to be stored away until peaks and demands require it.

Here's the gist of how it works: some types of rocks, which happen to be abundant in the bedrock of Iowa, are like "sponges" for water and compressed air. The plan is to locate the "storage" facilities on top of these rocks and pump compressed air into the rocks. Then, when it's needed, it will be tapped and turned into heat (or just turn a turbine as-is) to generate the power that's needed to augment the grid.

Nice idea. You can read the details at this link.