Hybrid vehicles[edit]

Types of systems[edit]
Hybrid systems[edit]
Brayton cycle engines compress and heat air with a fuel suitable for an internal combustion engine.
For example, natural gas or biogas heat compressed air, and then a conventional gas turbine engine
or the rear portion of a jet engine expands it to produce work.
Compressed air engines can recharge an electric battery. The apparently
defunct Energine promoted its Pne-PHEV or Pneumatic Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle-system.[citation
needed][33]

Existing hybrid systems[edit]

Huntorf, Germany in 1978, and McIntosh, Alabama, U.S. in 1991 commissioned hybrid power
plants.[10][34] Both systems use off-peak energy for air compression and burn natural gas in the
compressed air during the power generating phase.
Future hybrid systems[edit]
The Iowa Stored Energy Park (ISEP) will use aquifer storage rather than cavern storage. The
displacement of water in the aquifer results in regulation of the air pressure by the constant
hydrostatic pressure of the water. A spokesperson for ISEP claims, "you can optimize your
equipment for better efficiency if you have a constant pressure."[34] Power output of the McIntosh and
Iowa systems is in the range of 2300 MW.
Additional facilities are under development in Norton, Ohio. FirstEnergy, an Akron, Ohio electric
utility obtained development rights to the 2,700 MW Norton project in November, 2009.[35]

Lake or ocean storage[edit]

Deep water in lakes and the ocean can provide pressure without requiring high-pressure vessels or
drilling into salt caverns or aquifers.[36] The air goes into inexpensive, flexible containers such as
plastic bags below in deep lakes or off sea coasts with steep drop-offs. Obstacles include the limited
number of suitable locations and the need for high-pressure pipelines between the surface and the
containers. Since the containers would be very inexpensive, the need for great pressure (and great
depth) may not be as important. A key benefit of systems built on this concept is that charge and
discharge pressures are a constant function of depth. Carnot inefficiencies can thereby be reduced
in the power plant. Carnot efficiency can be increased by using multiple charge and discharge
stages and using inexpensive heat sources and sinks such as cold water from rivers or hot water
from solar ponds. Ideally, the system must be very cleverfor example, by cooling air before

pumping on summer days. It must be engineered to avoid inefficiency, such as wasteful pressure
changes caused by inadequate piping diameter.[37]
A nearly isobaric solution is possible if the compressed gas is used to drive a hydroelectric system.
However, this solution requires large pressure tanks located on land (as well as the underwater air
bags). Also, hydrogen gas is the preferred fluid, since other gases suffer from substantial hydrostatic
pressures at even relatively modest depths (such as 500 meters).
E.ON, one of Europe's leading power and gas companies, has provided 1.4 million (1.1 million) in
funding to develop undersea air storage bags.[38][39] Hydrostor in Canada is developing a commercial
system of underwater storage "accumulators" for compressed air energy storage, starting at the 1 to
4 MW scale.[40]
There is a plan for some type of compressed air energy storage in undersea caves by Northern
Ireland.[41]