---
title: "New Facility Will Store Wind Power as Highly Compressed Air"
description: "A team in the United Kingdom has started work on what the BBC reports is the world's first facility to store energy as highly compressed air."
date: "2020-11-06"
modified: "2020-11-06"
authors:
  - name: "Jon Christian"
    job_title: "Executive Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/facility-will-stores-wind-power-compressed-air"
categories:
  - "Energy"
  - "Renewable Energy"
  - "Science & Energy"
  - "Wind"
tags:
  - "compressed air"
  - "energy"
  - "the digest"
  - "wind"
---

# New Facility Will Store Wind Power as Highly Compressed Air

![A team in the United Kingdom has started work on what the BBC reports is the world's first facility to store energy as highly compressed air.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/facility-will-stores-wind-power-compressed-air.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Pixabay/Futurism\</em\>*

## Air Horn

A team in the United Kingdom has started work on what [the *BBC* reports](<https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54841528>) is the world's first facility to store energy as highly compressed air.

The 50 megawatt plant will take excess power from wind farms and use it to store ordinary air at pressures so great that it will become a liquid. Then, during periods of peak demand, they'll warm the stored air up and use it to power a turbine that pumps electricity back into the grid.

## Scale Mail

Inventor Peter Dearman told the *BBC* that the system, which we [first covered](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/giant-battery-powered-compressed-air>) before the team broke ground, is between 60 and 70 percent efficient. That's worse than a battery, but he predicted they'll be able to easily scale the system by adding more tank volume.

"Batteries are really great for short-term storage," Dearman told the broadcaster. "But they are too expensive to do long-term energy storage. That's where liquid air comes in."

## Big Grid

The system calls to mind similar experiments, like a [prototype in India](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/giant-hanging-bricks-store-renewable-energy-battery-energy-vault>) that stores energy by lifting heavy bricks and discharges it by lowering them.

"It's very exciting," he told the *BBC*. "We need many different forms of energy storage — and I'm confident liquid air will be one of them."

**READ MORE:** [UK energy plant to use liquid air](<https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54841528>) \[*BBC*\]

**More on air:** [*This Startup Says It Can Create “Meat” Out of Thin Air*](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/this-startup-creating-meat-air>)

## Author
I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/jonchristian.net>)