New gadget: Australian university installs 7MW "water battery"

The three-story building, called the "Water Battery," was featured in the school's promotional video. Image credit: USC promotional video.

The University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) in Queensland, Australia, is trialling a three-storey-high "water battery" to reduce energy demands and costs.

The thermal energy storage system will use a large tank to convert the output of 6,000 solar photovoltaic panels installed on USC's Sippy Downs campus into chilled water through a "complex thermal process," according to a USC release. The cooling and storage system is paired with 2.1 megawatts of on-site solar photovoltaics spread across campus rooftops and parking lots, which the university says is enough to cool 4.5 megaliters of water. The three-story, 7-megawatt tank system was designed and built by a team at the university in partnership with energy and power services company Veolia.

USC said last week that the tank, which staff members call a "water battery," will help "reduce grid energy use by 40 percent" at Sippy Downs, the university's largest campus. The cooled water will be stored and then used for air conditioning, currently the university's biggest energy use. USC Vice President Greg Hill said reducing the energy-intensive use of air conditioning is "an important step" toward USC's goal of becoming carbon neutral.

“It’s very exciting for us for a regional university to be leading the way in this and proving that we don’t need to be in a big city to make big advances in new ideas for renewable energy,” Hill said.

“This technology has the potential to transform the way energy is stored at scale, and we hope other organisations will take inspiration from it and actually follow our lead. The team behind this is already sharing the technology with schools, universities and companies around the world.”

As well as making huge strides in reducing CO2 emissions, USC hopes to be carbon neutral by 2025, the university estimates it will save $100 million over the water battery project’s expected 25-year lifespan.

(Original source: Energy Storage News New Energy Network Comprehensive)