Researchers at MIT are working on a way to solve the intermittency problem of offshore wind by creating an energy storage system made from huge concrete spheres. 

The spheres, which weigh thousands of tons each, would be placed on the seafloor under floating wind turbines. They would anchor the turbines as well as store energy for them, which would be released as needed. 

When wind turbines produce excess power, it would be diverted to drive a pump that's attached to a sphere, removing seawater from a 30-meter-diameter hollow sphere - about the size of the dome on the US Capitol. Later, when power is needed, water would be allowed to flow back into the sphere through a turbine attached to a generator, and the resulting electricity would be sent to shore.

One sphere in 400-meter-deep water could store up to 6 megawatt-hours of power. If spheres were attached to 1,000 wind turbines, that could replace an average coal or nuclear plant. And the energy source would be available (or taken off-line) in minutes, unlike coal or nuclear, which take hours to ramp up.

With the system connected to the grid, the spheres could also  store energy from other sources, such as onshore solar plants.

Their heavy weight would keep the spheres steady on the seafloor even when they're empty. They would be cast on land and towed out to sea.

Researchers estimate it would cost about $12 million per sphere, or 6 cents per kilowatt-hour for energy storage- a level considered viable by the utility industry. The price would come down as more are deployed.

A prototype has been functioning well through charging and discharging cycles, demonstrating the feasibility of the idea.

Unfortunately, a lot of concrete is required, as much as used to build the Hoover Dam, say the researchers, but it would also supply a comparable amount of power.

Because cement production is a major source of carbon emissions, the concrete could be made partially from fly ash, a waste product from coal plants. Over 10 years, researchers believe most of the fly ash produced by US coal plants could be absorbed by the spheres, while creating the capacity to supply a third of US electricity needs.

Learn more:

Website: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/wind-power-even-without-the-wind-0425.html

The depth of 400 m for a heavier than water hollow sphere seems to be very conservative as studies show that tubular structures that are still buoyant can reach 1400m depth (spheres would reach even deeper).

Troll A was operating during the mating process at 350m depth so the pressure at a depth of 400m is no "engineering challange" at all.

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web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/wind-power-even-without-the-wind-0425.html

make it blimp shape instead of sphere shaped and keep mobility...

. . .

- read more here: Captain Nemo float out...

http://concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t43942461/the-captain-nemo-float-out-seasteading/

 

even a much lighter version floating on the surface is wave impact safe...

Europe joins race to store energy at the bottom of the ocean

"Imagine opening a hatch in a submarine under water. The water will flow into the submarine with enormous force. It is precisely this energy potential we want to utilize." This is how German engineer Rainer Schramm describes his idea for storing energy under the sea. By using surplus energy to pump water out of a tank at the seabed, the water is simply let back in again when there's an energy shortfall, driving turbines as it rushes in. The deeper the tank, the more power is generated.

The technology is being developed by Schramm's company, Subhydro AS. Based in Olso, Norway for access to deeper water, the company claims to be the "first in the world to apply a specific patent-pending technology to make this possible." In fact the energy storage principle is identical to MIT's underwater hollow concrete spheres which could store surplus energy from offshore wind turbines. Subhydro also positions its tanks as a logical counterpart to offshore wind, but like MIT's technology, it could also be used to store energy from the grid.

Really, the idea is very similar to that behind above-ground pumped-storage hydroelectric power stations which pump water from a low reservoir to a high one when energy is cheap or plentiful, and allow it to flow back down through turbines when more energy is required. As with this new underwater technology, less energy is gained from the drop than is used to create the store of potential. The idea is simply to have potential energy reserved for when it's needed – half-time of major televised sporting events being a classic example. Schramm calculates the "round-trip" efficiency of the system to be 80 percent, which is in the same ballpark as conventional pumped-storage hydro.

Subhydro AS is working with Norwegian research organization SINTEF to develop the technology, which is designed for depths of between 400 and 800 m (1,300 and 2,600 ft). Subhydro claims that a plant of "normal size" would supply 300 MW of power for 7 or 8 hours at a time, though how many tanks that would require, or how big the individual tanks would be, is unclear.

Like MIT, Subhydro and SINTEF are looking at concrete as the material of choice. "The challenge is to find the optimal balance between strength and cost," explains SINTEF's Tor Arne Martius-Hammer. "If we achieve the goal of creating a concrete which will withstand at least five times as high loading as ordinary concrete, we can reduce the wall thickness by 75 per cent. This is a critical factor. We need to reach production and installation costs which make storage of energy economical in relation to the price of electrical energy."

MIT's technology is also patent pending, so gauging which team's plans are the more advanced is difficult.

http://www.gizmag.com/sea-floor-energy/27579/

-- Edited by admin on Sunday 13th of April 2014 12:56:45 PM

The ambient of a concrete sphere should be pictured something like that...

Get a foothold in ocean colonization:

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The Captain Nemo Lifestyle:

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Why oceanic business is the next big thing to come:

concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t56680633/the-reasons-why-oceanic-business-is-the-next-big-thing-to-co/

Ocean sphere fish farming:

concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t55433095/ocean-sphere-the-next-wave-of-sustainable-fish-farming/

All this will finally lead to the OCEAN SPHERE.

Ocean Sphere: concretesubmarine.activeboard.com/t56239662/oceanic-concrete-sphere-habitat/

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