In the Gobi Desert outside Golmud in the northwestern province of Qinghai, a row of white tanks stands tall in the open wilderness. Inside, air is compressed and cooled to -194 degrees Celsius (-317 Fahrenheit), and then it becomes liquid.
When released, it expands by more than 750 times, drives turbines and generates electricity.
This is the world’s largest liquid-air energy storage plant. Also known as the Super Air Power Bank, it is built by China Green Development Investment Group and developed with the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (TIPC-CAS).
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And it is nearly ready, according to a Science and Technology Daily report on December 23. The facility can deliver up to 600,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per discharge cycle. It runs for 10 hours straight.
Each year, it will generate about 180 million kWh, enough for 30,000 homes, according to the report.
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Wang Junjie, a researcher with TIPC-CAS, told the official Beijing Daily in May that the plant would help even out variations in renewable energy.
