Analysis of cold energy loss characteristics and improvement of liquefaction cycle methods in liquid air energy storage systems

Liquid air energy storage system plays a crucial role in maintaining grid stability. The cold storage packed bed constitutes a critical component of the system. In existing studies, few have investigated the influence of multiple cycles of the packed bed under non-ideal conditions on the liquid air energy storage system. Therefore, the cold energy loss of the packed bed under such conditions is investigated in this paper, and multiple cases are used to improve the system's liquefaction cycle to compensate for part of the cold energy loss. The results show that the cold energy loss of the packed bed leads to a reduction in system cycle efficiency, up to 22.7 percentage points compared with the ideal cycle. Improve the liquefaction cycle of the liquid air energy storage system can compensate for the cold energy loss. Compared with the system under the non-ideal cycle, the improved Heyland case achieves a cycle efficiency improvement of up to 19.9%. Its dynamic payback period is 7.1 years, the return on investment is 20.35%, and the levelized cost of energy storage is reduced by 7.9% compared with the non-ideal cycle system.