Can Highview Power's CRYOBattery Compete With Pumped Storage Hydroelectricity?

AnonW

Jul 29

In this article on the Telegraph, Rupert Pearce, who is Highview's chief executive and ex-head of the satellite company Inmarsat, discloses this.

Highview is well beyond the pilot phase and is developing its first large UK plant in Humberside, today Britain's top hub for North Sea wind. It will offer 2.5GW for over 12 hours, or 0.5GW for over 60 hours, and so forth, and should be up and running by late 2024.

The Humberside plant is new to me, as it has not been previously announced by Highview Power.

If it is built it will be megahuge with a storage capacity of 30 GWh and a maximum output of 2.5 GW.
Humberside with its connections to North Sea Wind, will be an ideal location for a huge CRYOBattery.
The world's largest pumped storage hydroelectric power station is Fengning Pumped Storage Power Station in China and it is 40 GWh.

Pumped storage hydroelectric power stations are the gold standard of energy storage.

In the UK we have four pumped storage hydroelectric power stations.

Cruachan Power Station - 7.1 GWh
Dinorwig Power Station (Electric Mountain) - 9.1 GWh
Falls of Foyers
Ffestiniog Power Station

With two more under construction.

Coire Glas Power Station - 30 GWh
Red John Power Station - 2.8 GWh

As energy is agnostic, 30 GWh of pumped storage hydroelectric power at Coire Glas is the equivalent of 30 GWh in Highview Power's proposed Humberside CRYOBattery.

Advantages Of CRYOBatteries Over Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Power

I can think of these advantages.

Cost
Could be build on the flat lands of East Anglia or Lincolnshire
Factory-built
NIMBYs won't have much to argue about
No dams
No flooding of valleys
No massive construction sites.
No mountains required
No tunnels
Small footprint

I suspect that a large CRYOBattery could be built well within a year of starting construction.

Rupert Pearce's Dream

The Telegraph article says this and I suspect it's a quote from Rupert Pearce.

Further projects will be built at a breakneck speed of two to three a year during the 2020s, with a target of 20 sites able to provide almost 6GW of back-up electricity for four days at a time, or whatever time/power mix is optimal.

6 GW for four days is 576 GWh, which if it were spread around twenty sites is 28.8 GWh per site, which is just under the 30 GWh of the proposed Humberside CRYOBattery.

Conclusion

You can just imagine the headlines in The Sun!

Man In Bishops Stortford Garage Saves The World!

Now that's what I call success!

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