Assessing the Potential for Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) in Kentucky to Augment Energy Production by Renewable Resources” (RPA Pilot / Seed Project)

Fossil fuel electrical generating plants in Kentucky have some of the highest emissions of greenhouse gasses in the US. One way to mitigate these greenhouse gas emissions is by the co-installation of Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) where electricity is generated by either fossil fuels or renewable sources such as photovoltaic (PV) solar generation. The advantage of CAES for PV solar generation is that it is available at night. CAES, however, requires a site where compressed air can be stored to drive turbines. Historically this CAES storage has been in solution-mined salt caverns, however storage in subsurface geological reservoirs is also possible and an attractive reuse of depleted oil and gas fields. This research will evaluate the geological opportunities for CAES in Kentucky in abandoned limestone mines and subsurface depleted oil and gas fields. The subsurface research will require laboratory measurements of geological, mineralogical, geochemical, geomechanical, and geophysical evaluation of reservoir strata. A portable probe permeameter is requested which will rapidly measure the permeability of core samples without having to take destructive plugs of the core and ship them to an outside lab. This is essential for small diameter cores (one inch or less) where drilling a core plug is destructive. This instrument would provide the capability to rapidly screen large numbers of cores to locate highly permeability intervals.