(Yicai Global) Jan. 7 -- Zhangjiakou, a city in northern Hebei province which is one of the venues for the upcoming Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, has completed the world’s largest and most efficient compressed air energy storage power station.

The plant, which was connected to the grid on Dec. 31 last year, has officially entered the system commissioning phase, China Science Daily reported today. Its capacity is 100 megawatts / 400 megawatt-hours and its system design efficiency exceeds 70 percent.

The project kicked off in 2018 and the main equipment installation and system integration was completed last December. It was built by Zhangbei Giant Energy, while the technology provider was the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

CAES uses surplus electricity from the grid’s low demand periods to compress air, injects it in high-voltage sealed facilities, and releases it into gas turbines to generate electricity during power consumption peaks. This technology has a large scale, long life, low costs, unlimited energy storage cycle, and it is also clean as it does not depend on fossil fuels or geographical conditions.

The Winter Olympics will be held in Beijing, Yanqing, and Zhangjiakou from Feb. 4 to Feb. 20.

Editor: Futura Costaglione