Techno-economic assessment and design optimization of compressed air energy storage using filament wound carbon fiber reinforced plastic pressure vessels

The deployment of filament wound carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) pressure vessels for small to medium scale CAES systems is techno-economically assessed and proposed as a cost-effective and location-independent installable solution. The cost of filament wound CFRP vessels is estimated for different vessel sizes and internal pressures via a Monte-Carlo design method that considers the uncertainties in raw material cost, design safety factor, and fabrication expenses. The guidelines for the optimum design of the CAES system in terms of sizing, operational pressure, and the number of required vessels are reported to minimize the cost of filament wound CFRP vessels. Results suggest that filament wound CFRP pressure vessels utilized in CAES systems are more cost-effective compared to conventional metallic tanks and pipes. Moreover, smaller radius filament wound CFRP vessels, i.e., in a sense, pipes, are more economical compared to larger radius ones. Finally, for a given compressed air volume, a single vessel is cheaper than multiple vessels to store a specific amount of energy such that the use of multiple vessels incurs a cost penalty ranging from roughly 10% for small radius vessels up to 50% for large radius vessels.