The United States Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) has approved a permit application from LightSail Energy, a developer of sustainable energy technologies, for its breakthrough high capacity, lightweight, low-cost carbon composite pressure vessels.
The DOT permit authorises the manufacture, marking, sale and use of LightStore® vessels in the U.S. for transportation of large amounts of natural gas, hydrogen and certain other gases by road, rail and cargo vessel.
The LightStore vessels are also authorized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for ground storage of natural gas.
The LightStore vessels were developed as part of LightSail’s innovative compressed air energy storage system that couples an isothermal compressor/expander with low-cost compressed air storage vessels to economically store electricity at grid-scale. The compressed air storage technology is now available for storage of natural gas for vehicle refueling and power generation, and for transportation of large quantities of gas to locations where pipelines do not exist. The boom in U.S. natural gas production has led to historically low gas prices, driving widespread substitution of gas for other fossil fuels, resulting in safer, cleaner, cheaper energy solutions.
“We are very pleased to announce our LightStore product line that provides breakthrough economics in gas storage and transportation”, said Dr. Stephen E. Crane, Co-Founder and CEO of LightSail Energy. “LightStore vessels allow transportation of up to half a million standard cubic foot of natural gas per truck load, which is up to 5 times more capacity than a steel tube trailer – enough fuel to refuel a fleet of Class 8 trucks or keep a thousand homes warm in a cold winter day”.
LightStore vessels have been rigorously tested to ensure safety, performance and reliability to achieve the ASME and DOT approvals. Tests included those prescribed by ASME Section X, which is the gold standard for stationary storage, ISO 11119-3, which is the established international standard for composite pressure vessels and ISO 11515, which is the latest global standard for large capacity vessels for bulk gas transportation. LightStore vessels are the first high capacity vessels in the world to meet the requirements of ISO 11515 for all-composite vessels, which includes very rigorous impact testing.
LightSail currently manufactures LightStore vessels at their ASME certified facility in Berkeley, CA.
(Source: Lightsail Energy)
