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Updated Wednesday, February 10, 2010 11:29 am TWN, By Paul Foy, AP

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U.S. company aims to store energy in air

Later, the company is looking to dig other caverns at the site for compressed air, which could store excess energy generated by a nearby wind farm and then release it later when demand is high to turn turbines and create electricity, and possibly for carbon storage, which could trap a neighboring coal-fired power plant's emissions.

Still other caverns could be devoted to liquid petroleum; yet another pipeline for liquid fuels, passing through the same part of Utah, is close to receiving federal approval.

The company filed for federal approval in December to build its versatile “energy hub.”

A futuristic type of energy storage could involve putting the battery capacity of plug-in electric vehicles to work for the electric grid. It could take extra power from vehicles when needed, while ensuring a vehicle is properly charged overnight, said Daniel Laird, a researcher for Sandia's wind energy technology group.

That will work only when plug-in cars make up a big part of the U.S. vehicle fleet, however.

For now, “we've got to find a way to store renewable energy for when people need it,” said Steve Michel, a former utility executive who works for Western Resources Advocates, a Boulder, Colorado-based nonprofit law firm.

Other forms of energy storage involve lumbering flywheels or banks of batteries, but they have limited capacities and can be costly.

“In terms of storing bulk energy — lots of megawatt-hours — compressed air is cheaper than anything else out there,” said Paul Denholm, lead analyst for energy storage at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Lab in Boulder, Colorado.

In Utah, Magnum snapped up rights to the largest known salt deposit in the American West, a bed one mile thick by several miles (kilometers) wide. It has the advantage of being close to several energy producers; another company is planning a major solar farm in Utah's west desert.

“The physical location of that salt deposit is just tremendously valuable, said Scott Jones, managing director of Houston-based Haddington Energy Partners III, which is backing the project.

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