Lake Simcoe Community Energy Storage
A problem in Ontario is that we have excess amount of energy at night and sometimes not enough during the day, especially in the summer. During the day electricity costs are higher, forcing people to pay more for energy during peak times, but we end up giving away our hard earned energy at night to the United States. My idea stems from a product that already exists, the Hydrostor. The Hydrostor system efficiently converts electrical energy to compressed air via an advanced adiabatic compression system. This air is then sent to a series of flexible accumulators located 50-500 meters below the surface of a body of water. Once in the accumulators, the energy can be stored until required by the grid. When the energy is required, the weight of the water pushes the air back to the surface where our system directs it through an expander driving a generator thus supplying energy to the grid and completing the storage cycle. This system would be located deep in Kempenfelt Bay, a part of Lake Simcoe. This system would not only save the wasted energy at night, but would reduce our need for non-renewable energy sources during the day, thus reducing our GHG emissions. Currently, Lake Ontario is home to the Hydrostor's first application. This would help support a local company while helping Barrie's local citizens and the City as whole