North American Clean Energy published “A New Kind of Wind Energy” by Keegan Lang, Senior Vice President at Breeze, in its September/October 2021 issue. The article went online on September 18, 2021.
Lang argues that transmission is now the biggest barrier to scaling wind and other renewables, because power is generated far from where it is used. At the same time, he writes, about a quarter of North America’s three million miles of oil and gas pipelines sit idle. His answer is to use those pipelines as transmission lines. Wind turbines built near compressor stations power compressors that push air into the pipeline, and the compressed air drives turbines at power plants further down the line.
The article adds that compressed air is harmless if leaked and needs no water, that compressing and releasing it gives off useful heat and cold, and that a proof of concept was running at an office complex in Alberta, Canada.
Read the article on the North American Clean Energy website.