Abstract: The overall wind energy resources in Inner Mongolia is estimated at 1380 GW of which 380 GW can be actually explored. This accounts for 50% of total amount in China. Currently, over 20% of the electrical network capacity in Inner Mongolia is from wind power generation. This study concerns grid integration of large-scale wind power generation into Inner Mongolia power grid. A compressed air energy storage (CAES) system is designed in this work for effective and efficient utilization of the wind power. The CAES system harnesses the abandoned wind power at off peak hours (night) to produce high temperature heat for use on daytime. The effects of heat consumption, charge ratio and efficiency of CAES power recovery on the plant performance are investigated. It is found that high operating pressures and large compressed air storage capacities give high efficiencies of CAES system.

Key words: wind power, compressed air, heat storage, efficiency