Renewable energy production is intermittent and not always available when needed. The ideal storage system will provide an agricultural producer the option of either (a) using the energy stored, as needed, to power large loads such as irrigations pumps, or (b) selling excess or stored energy back to the utility during peak load. Lastly, an underlying requirement of iCAST's CAES pilot was to provide the agricultural community an affordable energy storage solution utilizing "off-the-shelf" parts - to make it fairly easy and cost-effective for the typical agricultural worker to commission, operate and repair the equipment.
