Imagine a giant battery that stores energy by pumping air into underground rock caverns. Instead of losing heat during this process, this system captures and saves that heat to use later, making it much more efficient. It uses AI to act like a smart thermostat, adjusting the system in real-time based on the weather to save as much power as possible.
Current Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) suffers from low efficiency, poor scalability, and limited energy density, making it difficult to store massive amounts of renewable energy cost-effectively.
An experimental cavern lab in the Canary Islands and a TRL4 isobaric adiabatic CAES system including AI-based control and optimized turbomachinery.
If you are a renewable energy producer dealing with volatile power output — this project developed a Combined Cycle CAES system that reaches over 80% efficiency. This allows you to store excess green energy in hard-rock caverns and release it when the grid needs it most.
If you are a grid operator dealing with instability from renewable penetration — this project developed a large-scale storage solution with an energy density of 11.8 kWh/m3. This enables the use of hard-rock areas for massive energy reserves to stabilize the power supply.
If you are a carbon management company dealing with atmospheric CO2 — this project developed an integrated system that can capture 10 kTn of CO2 per year for a standard 500 MW plant. This turns energy storage infrastructure into a tool for active carbon removal.
Based on available project data, the project aims to boost cost-effective commercial development by optimizing turbomachinery and using cost-effective membranes and heat storage media to increase profitability.
Yes, the project targets large-scale energy storage, specifically mentioning a standard 500 MW plant configuration and the use of hard-rock bedded caverns.
The Combined Cycle CAES (CCC) concept is patented by RIEGOSUR, with granted patent applications in Europe, the USA, and other countries.
The system is designed to fill gaps in the grid to accelerate the penetration of renewable energies by providing high-efficiency storage.
The project period runs from 2023-10-01 to 2027-09-30.
The consortium is led by RIEGO SUR SA, a Spanish company holding the core patents. It consists of 7 partners across 3 countries (Spain, Italy, Greece). The group is heavily weighted toward research and academia, with 4 universities and 1 research organization, while industry representation is low at 14% (1 company). This suggests the project is currently in a high-tech validation phase rather than a commercial rollout phase.
Contact RIEGO SUR SA regarding the CCC patented technology
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