Coupled nonlinear wellbore multiphase flow and thermo-hydro-mechanical analysis of compressed air energy storage in aquifers

Yi Li, Qian Zhou, Hao Yu, Yi Li, Yinjiang Liu, Leqing Huang, Dong Tang, Guijin Zhang and Yaning Liu

Applied Energy, 2025, vol. 377, issue PA, No S0306261924018245

Abstract: Compressed air energy storage in aquifers (CAESA) is a low-cost large-scale energy storage technology. To study the mechanical influence of the reservoir on CAESA, a coupled nonlinear wellbore multiphase flow and thermo-hydro-mechanical simulator, THMW-Air, is developed and verified to be effective using data from the pilot CAESA project in Pittsfield. The hydrodynamic, thermodynamic, and mechanical behaviors, as well as the energy efficiency of CAESA, are analyzed and compared using the T2Well-EOS3 simulator, which does not include the mechanical processes. Results show that, by incorporating the mechanical effects of the reservoir, the correlation coefficient between simulated and monitored pressures in Pittsfield improves from 0.9046 to 0.9211. The effective stress in the aquifer of CAESA decreases by 2.0 MPa and the permeability increases by at least 14.1 %. By considering the geomechanical effects, the air migrates farther horizontally, and the increase in temperature and pressure is relatively smaller. When the air injection temperature is 50 °C, the rate of decrease in energy efficiency under the THM condition is 9.75 % higher than that under the TH condition, while when the air injection temperature is 20 °C, the rate of increase in energy efficiency under the THM condition is 5.15 % higher than that under the TH condition.

Keywords: Compressed air energy storage; Aquifers; THM couplings; Energy efficiency; Numerical simulation; Wellbore multiphase flow (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261924018245
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:377:y:2025:i:pa:s0306261924018245

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2024.124441

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().