FEATURE u Compressed Air


Ground-breaking liquid air energy storage demonstrator ‘goes live’ at Aggregate Industries to support decarbonisation goals


A


n industry-first application of liquid air energy storage (LAES) energy efficiency technology is a live IEEA demonstrator


project at Aggregate Industries’ Cauldon Cement Works.


PRISMA technology, which has been developed


by Innovatium in partnership with Birmingham University, is a potential ‘game-changer’ alternative to traditional compressed air technologies. Its developers say PRISMA (Peak Reduction


by Integrated Storage and Management of Air) has the potential to play a significant role in the decarbonisation of intensive energy companies across a wide range of sectors. Early data shows that Prisma can deliver up to 25 per cent energy savings as well as hours of back-up energy storage.


The PRISMA system installed on site at


Aggregate Industries’ Cauldon Cement Works in Staffordshire is its first fully operational deployment in a live customer environment. For Aggregate Industries, PRISMA is expected to make a meaningful contribution to the company’s ambitious 2030 Sustainability Strategy – to deliver a reduction in carbon emissions down to 500Kg CO2 net/t cementitious (from 2020 baseline), to contribute towards industry Net Zero targets.


FUNDING FROM IEEA PROGRAMME Innovatium’s PRISMA technology is a successful recipient of Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) funding under the Government’s Industrial Energy Efficiency Accelerator (IEEA) programme, managed by the Carbon Trust.


This liquid air energy storage technology stores


energy in liquid air form to provide compressed air, allowing inefficient partially loaded, variable- demand compressors to be turned off, thus improving the total system efficiency by up to 25 per cent.


‘INDUSTRY FIRST’ At Cauldon, the PRISMA system will bring together a latent energy cold storage tank, filled with a phase change material (PCM) to store thermal energy. Along with a number of off- the-shelf components, this forms a system that will work within Aggregate Industries’ existing


28 November 2022 Irish Manufacturing


Ground-breaking liquid air energy storage demonstrator ‘goes live’ at Aggregate Industries


compressed air network. The integration of such equipment in an industrial setting, for the provision of compressed air, has never been attempted before. The ‘go live’ of the PRISMA system at Cauldon was marked by an Evaluation Visit by representatives from BEIS and the Carbon Trust. Innovatium confirms that data will be published from the Aggregate Industries demonstrator project this summer.


Commenting on the deployment of PRISMA


for the Aggregate Industries demonstrator project, Simon Branch, Co-Founder and CEO of Innovatium, says: “We are delighted to reach this major milestone which will underpin the next phase of our growth strategy. The project at Cauldon will give us valuable data on the performance of the system itself – but also ‘real- life’ evidence of the cost and carbon efficiencies that we believe are achievable. “The Evaluation Visit by BEIS and the Carbon


Trust is a great opportunity to demonstrate what we’re doing here by seeing the kit in action – and to explain how our collaboration with Aggregate


Industries is expected to deliver significant results.” Innovatium has recently received £900k


investment funding led by Kelvin Capital, alongside co-investment partners Scottish Enterprise. The funding round will support the continued development of PRISMA technology. Kirstin McCarthy, Sustainability Director at


Aggregate Industries, adds: “We are very proud to be the first partner to install the PRISMA system in an operational environment. Aggregate Industries is committed to transitioning to net zero, and supporting innovations like PRISMA is vital in helping us achieve that goal. “We believe PRISMA can play a major


role in addressing the ‘energy trilemma’ of managing energy efficiency, energy cost and energy security, and we’re confident that its installation at Cauldon will further prove its decarbonisation credentials – a big step towards full commercialisation of the technology.”


Innovatium www.innovatium.co.uk www.irish-manufacturing.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40