Startup to deploy innovative air-based energy storage system underwater — here’s why

A startup is ready to get deep by installing an underwater air-based energy storage system. The result could be reliable, clean energy at a greatly reduced cost.

As detailed by Interesting Engineering, BaroMar is building a four-megawatt-hour project in Cyprus as it explores how to store renewable, non-polluting energy for wide-scale use.

Dirty fuels account for the bulk of the pollution, causing global temperatures to rise and dangerously supercharging our weather. Scientists overwhelmingly agree that transitioning to clean energy sources, like solar and wind, will help ensure our planet — and its inhabitants — have a healthier future.

However, storage solutions are essential to meet energy demands. While lithium-ion batteries keep our more eco-friendly electric vehicles running smoothly, they are expensive and lose storage capacity over time, as Interesting Engineering pointed out.

BaroMar believes that its Compressed Air Energy Storage system, or CAES, is the key to cost-effective bulk energy storage.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, this concept has been used for mechanical processes since 1870, when Argentina moved clock arms with air pulses. The first utility-scale CAES project involving heat transfer took place in Germany in 1978.

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Geological and regulatory constraints have limited the applications for this type of energy storage system, though, as BaroMar notes on its official website.

The Israel-based company explains in a video that the “negligible relative pressure between the compressed air and the surrounding water” helps keep construction costs low. The tanks can be installed as deep as 700 meters (around 2,300 feet).

When people need more clean energy, the compressed air is released through a pipe, pushed through a thermal recovery system, into a turbo expander, and then to a generator to power the grid. At the same time, water is allowed to enter back into a reservoir.

The number of cycles is “unlimited,” and the company says installation costs are “as low as $80 per kilowatt-hour.” The design also reduces the need for underwater maintenance to nearly zero, suggesting there will be minimal disruption to the environment.

According to Interesting Engineering, the next steps as of May likely included plenty of surveying, investigations, and permitting.

If fully realized, BaroMar’s CAES system could be another promising, cost-effective energy storage solution that uses an abundant natural resource, joining the ranks of crushed rocks and pebbles.

On its website, the startup says that its technology is around $31 cheaper per megawatt-hour than competing systems, costing $100 per megawatt-hour.

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