The Decommissioning and Reassembly of Liquid Air Energy Storage.

Descriptions

Background:The Liquid Air Energy Storage (LAES) facility currently located in Slough was designed, developed and constructed by Highview Power Storage over several years, with development work first concentrating on the storage and then subsequent expansion of a cryogenic fluid to provide power generation (discharge device), before the plant was relocated and the facility expanded to include the charging device, a demonstration air liquefaction plant with a ‘first of a kind' cold recycle process.The facility is the first and only fully integrated LAES system of its size known to exist in the world today. Connected to the electricity network, it can be operated to import electrical energy from the grid (using it to create liquid air), store this energy in large super insulated tanks and then expand the liquid air to drive a power turbine and export energy back onto the electricity network as required. Highview Power Storage, the company responsible for developing the system from initial concept, have extensively modelled the process and build multiple lab scale test rigs in order to comprehensively understand the characteristics of the process to enable the safe construction and operation of this ground breaking facility.Scope of Works:The Highview Power Storage LAES facility is to be relocated to a site within the Edgbaston campus of the University of Birmingham.Works involve the safe decommissioning of individual components as well as the process as a whole, this shall require a sufficient level of specialist knowledge of each independent technology and an understanding of how they interact in the process. Once decommissioning is complete the facility is to be systematically disassembled, each component suitably marked and referenced to ensure correct reassembly can be achieved at the new site.The current location of the plant is within an operational power station in Slough trading estate. The site is confined and a collaborative approach will be required with the land and power station owner SSE, to enable the successful disassembly and removal of the LAES plant. This is largely due to the fact that SSE has active plant and personnel in close proximity to the boundary fences of the facility, which will need removal to enable access with specialist lifting equipment and the loading of transport vehicles to complete the works. It should be noted that during the original construction of the facility, adaptive methods were developed between Highview Power Storage and the contractors involved and it is strongly suggested that these methods should be repeated to ensure that the project is completed both economically and effectively.The plant is to be transported to the new site in Birmingham where it is to be reconstructed in the same general arrangement as is currently laid out in Slough to minimise the amount of new pipework fabrication. There are however significant design changes to the facility dictated by differences in available waste heat and utilities between the two sites. The new installation requires the design, sizing and integration of a thermal store taking heat from available steam local to the site, this shall require a sufficient level of knowledge of thermal heat recovery systems as well as how they will interact with the LAES system from both an operational and performance perspective.Once construction is complete and fully tested to the suitable industrial standards, the system is to be re-commissioned and its performance proved before handing over to the University staff. It shall be necessary in the re-commissioning process to follow procedures developed during the original build. As this is a new ‘first of a kind' process these were developed over many months using industry standard methodology, advice from original equipment suppliers and knowledge from commissioning engineers that assisted when the facility was first constructed.Finally the O&M documentation is to be updated taking account of the revised process, including operational guidelines and safety recommendation specific to the LAES process on the new site.