Life Cycle Environmental Performance of a Geothermal-assisted Multi-energy Liquid Air Energy Storage System Using a Repurposed Abandoned Exploitation Well

Liquid air energy storage (LAES) is a promising option for large-scale energy storage and industrial decarbonisation, yet standalone systems underutilise compression heat. This study proposes an integrated LAES configuration that couples LAES with low-grade geothermal heat recovered from abandoned exploitation wells (AEWs) to enhance discharge-stage performance, while reallocating high-grade compression heat to cooling generation via absorption chillers. In parallel, the dry-air stream available from the LAES process is evaluated as a potential supplementary clean dry air (CDA) supply, with CDA utilisation and additional matching electricity examined through sensitivity analysis. A case study of a semiconductor wafer fabrication facility shows that the system can deliver 23.7 GWh_th of cooling and 93.5 million m³ of CDA over 30 years. Life cycle assessment using ReCiPe 2016 indicates that the LAES-AEW cooling and CDA configuration can reduce emissions by up to 10.4 ktCO₂eq, corresponding to a 54 % decrease in life-cycle emissions relative to standalone LAES under high grid carbon intensities. AEW integration removes the bulk Therminol-66 inventory associated with warm thermal storage, although the additional AEW and absorption-chiller infrastructure produces category-specific non-climate trade-offs and Therminol-66 remains in the charging-stage heat-recovery loop. Overall, the proposed LAES-AEW system demonstrates a scalable polygeneration pathway for decarbonising energy-intensive industries, highlighting the importance of thermal cascading and co-product utilisation in advancing long-duration energy storage, subject to site-specific resource availability and co-product demand.

Polygeneration, Renewable cooling, Geothermal energy, Liquid air energy storage, Life cycle assessment

10.1016/j.ecmx.2026.102446

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