New age UPS

[ruggedscot]

Im looking for some opinions on a UPS that Ive found on the internet, its one that uses no batteries and I find it pretty interesting especially when we are trying to reduce the impact on the environment.....

http://www.activepower.com

Its a compressed air storage device that discharges through a heat source and drives a turbine. The heat source being a block of metal that is kept heated when everything is okay.

I think that this may be an avenue worth looking at but wonder if anyone out there has had experiance of this sort of system.....

can it cope with frequency deviation ie maintain close tolerance on output frequency and voltage during an outage ?

If you are able to get batteries out of the equation then I think that you are making a siginificant contribution towards reducing the enviromental impact....

A wind turbine could be employed to keep the heat source at design temperature with additional top up from utility as and when required.

Me cant help but think there must be a down side to this.

Any contributions?

 

[waross]

I think that if you do a few calculations, and then compare the size of installation needed to store the same amount of energy as lead acid truck battery you may come to the conclusion that the person proposing this has not done the calculations.
I may be wrong.
respectfully

 

[itsmoked]

I see no environmental down side really with a lead acid battery. Lead isn't cheap anymore. Batteries are recycled not tossed these days.

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.-

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[ScottyUK]

Lots of mechanical bits in addition to the power electronics of a more conventional UPS. If it is mechanical, one day it will wear out. That day will always be the day when the utility fails. Electronics fails too, but less frequently on average.

Bill is right, the size of the air reservoirs to store enough energy for a big load with a couple of minutes run time will be massive. What price the environmental impact of making all the extra steel for the pressure vessels, the compressors and so on? Then factor in the compressor oil (pollutant), the monetary and environmental costs of transporting and erecting a massive air farm? Add in the costs electricity or diesel to run the compressors? Suddenly it is not really a low environmental impact product, it's just impacting the environment in ways that receive less publicity.


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Sometimes I wake up Grumpy.
Other times I just let her sleep!

 

[LionelHutz]

They talk about it being a way to provide power while switching to a generator, not as a long use power source. I guess that could be a disadvantage. Sounds like an alternative to the flywheel generator systems.