Warm Ice Air-conditioning

Xiaolin Wang will speak on "Warm ice: Gas hydrate energy storage for air-conditioning applications" at the Australian National University in Canberra, 12 noon, 20 October 2014:

The burgeoning popularity of affordable air-conditioning is responsible for peaks in electricity grid loading across the world. This in turn leads either to electricity supply black-outs or a requirement for expensive electricity grid augmentation. By deploying energy storage capacity, the severity of these peak loads may be reduced. For air conditioning applications, we propose the storage of cooling effect as a more cost-effective energy storage mechanism than storage of electricity. The purpose of our research is to demonstrate how practical, low cost and safe energy stores of high energy density may be achieved using gas hydrate formations consisting of water and carbon dioxide. The seminar will cover research to date, the equipment in use and some early results. We will also outline some of the challenges faced and future research plans.