Liquid Air Storage China Scales Neglected Energy Storage Technology

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A large liquid air storage facility will soon be put into operation in Golmud, China. Such systems use liquefied air as energy storage in extremely cold conditions to compensate for fluctuations in the grid caused by solar and wind power.

The Chinese pilot project has a capacity of 600,000 kilowatt-hours, reported the Chinese television station CGTN. A solar park with 250,000 kilowatts in close proximity provides the necessary energy.
The technology for liquid air storage has existed for about 50 years. It has been researched in several countries since then, including Germany and the United Kingdom, but has yet to reach market readiness anywhere.

The state-owned "China Green Development Investment Group" (CGDG) is now taking action and has built such a cryogenic large storage facility in Golmud, on the edge of the Gobi Desert. Essentially, it is a massive battery that uses ambient air as the storage medium instead of sodium ions. This is freely available.

How Do Liquid Air Storage Systems Work?

The construction of liquid air storage systems typically does not require rare earths or similar scarce resources. A few steel tanks and some facilities, which are already used in other industrial plants in a similar form, are sufficient.

• When the solar plants generate more electricity than the grid can absorb, air is first cleaned and then compressed using compressors. 
• The air is then cooled to minus 194 degrees Celsius and liquefied. It can then be conveniently stored in steel tanks.
• When there is an increased demand for electricity in the grid, such as during peak consumption times, and the solar and wind farms—dependent on the time of day and season—are not providing enough green energy, the energy stored in the liquid air storage system is fed into the power grid.
• The heat that was generated and stored during the air compression process is then utilized to reheat the liquid air. It is essentially "cooked." During this process, the air expands by a factor of 750 and turns into an extremely volatile gas, which then generates electricity through turbines and generators.

What Efficiency Does the New Liquid Air Storage System Achieve?

This technology has been refined in the Gobi Desert over the past few years through extensive experiments until it became suitable for large-scale systems. In particular, a team of scientists succeeded in developing a low-temperature system for this purpose that operates at atmospheric pressure.

His facility achieves "a cold storage efficiency of over 95 percent" and a "roundtrip efficiency of over 55 percent," said Wang Junjie, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in a recently produced documentary. The "Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry," where Wang works, was involved in the development of the facility in Golmud.

The liquid air storage system, which is set to be commissioned in the near future, will enable an annual production of 180 million kilowatt-hours, according to its developers. This is sufficient to supply power to 30,000 households for a year. A single discharge phase can last up to ten hours, as reported by Chinese media. They proudly referred to the facility as a “Super Air Power Bank.”

What Is the Status in Other Countries?

In Carrington, southwest of Manchester, a liquid air storage facility is also currently being constructed by the company Highview Power. It is reportedly set to be completed in August of this year, as reported by the BBC in October 2025. Highview Power has been working on this technology for many years but has struggled for a long time to secure the necessary financing.

A similar situation is faced by a start-up in Munich called Phelas, which, although it received the relatively modest sum of 4.1 million euros (~$4.7 Million) in its first funding round in March 2024 from investors such as the Israeli climate fund E44, Deutsche Telekom Hubraum, Axon Partners Group, and others, is also struggling to find sufficient capital to bring this demonstrably viable technology to market at an adequate scale.

How Is the Project Financed?

In China, such financial problems do not exist. The state investment fund CGDG can rely on the support of the Chinese government, as the globally leading expansion of renewable energy is generating significant pressure in China to balance grid fluctuations caused by solar and wind power. So far, China has primarily relied on pumped storage power plants to solve this problem sustainably. Energy surpluses from solar and wind power are used to pump water into a higher reservoir, which can then flow back down at night or during calm periods to drive turbines.

Additionally, megabattery storage systems are also being developed in China, similar to those built by Elon Musk in the USA. The new technology of liquid air storage has the advantage over pumped storage power plants that it does not require water. The advantages over battery storage have already been mentioned.

The new technology of liquid air storage has the advantage over pumped storage power plants that it does not require water.

While proponents of the technology in the UK and Germany are constantly confronted with the argument that air cooling storage is too expensive, plans in China are made holistically and with a long-term view. It is taken for granted here that such initiatives must be funded by the state at least initially if the government wants to seriously promote an energy transition.

What Is the Share of Non-Fossil Energy in China?

In China, the share of non-fossil energy sources (renewables plus hydro and nuclear power) in the total installed capacity has now surpassed the 50 percent mark. Nevertheless, coal power plants still need to operate repeatedly to balance the fluctuations from solar and wind energy.

It is quite possible that air cooling storage will be scaled up significantly in the People's Republic in the near future, which could drastically reduce global prices for such systems.