A Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) in Salt Caverns power plant facility - the first in Canadian history - is soon to be built in the city of Goderich (Ontario).
The project, valued at $7.2 million, was due to the efforts of industry leaders NRStor and Hydrostor, partnering with the University of Waterloo.
Waterloo’s role in this project is to bring geomechanics, sensor and energy expertise to help understand the behaviour of the ground and to evaluate the energetics of the compressor/expander/heat storage systems at the surface. Several students will be involved in sensor placement and analysis at the Goderich facility. The work should lead to a better understanding of these systems, paving the way for much larger compressed air storage projects in the near future. Such projects could have great benefits to Ontario consumers, reducing energy costs while increasing the amount of renewable energy in the grid.
The University of Waterloo team consists of Dr. Maurice Dusseault, (Earth and Environmental Sciences), Dr. Giovanni Cascante, (Civil and Environmental Engineering), Dr. Roydon Fraser, (Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering), Armughan Al-Haq, (Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy - WISE), and Sean McKenna, (Earth and Environmental Sciences and WISE).