Salt Cavern Storage in Northern Ireland

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Recently in the news, Northern Ireland has plans to build a wind energy project off the Antrim coast. Salt caverns beneath the sea will store the energy generated by the wind farms for times of peak energy demand. With any wind power project, it can’t be relied upon for powering whole cities or a grid, for the wind doesn’t always blow obviously. But with the use of air-tight salt caverns, the energy produced from the wind farms is stored underground and released only as needed. In addition, the salt caverns continue to compress and store the wind power even at night.

The $3 million dollar project is setting a great precedent for the region to seek, or at least be open to, new means of clean-tech energy production. With the dependence and environmental effects of fossil fuel energy, it is a smart move, for this is the way of the future. It’s also refreshing to know that the project might help offset any recession in the area by creating jobs and pumping a little more income into the economy there. The stored energy will balance the cost of electricity in the region as well, for energy cost wont jump up when everyone turns on their heater at the same time, instead the energy company can just release a little of the stored wind power energy to meet the demands.

Salt caverns have many other uses as well. Some of them are: carbon capture, oilfield waste, natural gas storage, and many many more!

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Source by Jason Fradley