Charge, storage, and discharge energy system using liquid air and sCO2

A method of using excess electrical energy of a primary power generation system to store and generate power, comprising:

• using an air separation unit powered by the excess electrical energy to cool and liquify ambient air into liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen;
• storing the liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen in separate storage systems;
• using the liquid oxygen (L-O2) in an L-O2 energy discharge path that vaporizes and heats the oxygen with an L-O2 heat exchanger, receives the oxygen into an sCO2 oxy-combustor that provides an sCO2 (supercritical carbon dioxide) stream, and uses exhaust from the combustor to drive a first turbine;
• using a recuperator to recover waste heat from the first turbine thereby capturing the sCO2 stream;
• wherein the oxygen is vaporized and heated with heat from the sCO2 stream delivered to the L-O2 heat exchanger;
• and
• using the liquid nitrogen (L-N2) in an L-N2 energy discharge path that vaporizes and heats the nitrogen with an L-N2 heat exchanger, thereby providing expanded nitrogen, and uses the expanded nitrogen to drive a second turbine;
• wherein the L-N2 heat exchanger uses heat from the sCO2 stream delivered from the recuperator, such that the recuperator is configured to deliver heat from the sCO2 stream to the L-N2 heat exchanger while both the L-O2 energy discharge path and the L-N2 energy discharge path are in operation;
• wherein the air separation unit operates independently of both the L-02 energy discharge path and the L-N2 energy discharge path;
• wherein both the L-02 energy discharge path and the L-N2 energy discharge path operate independently of operation of the primary power generation system.