> Your calculations appear be within an order of magnitude of correct

Being within an order of magnitude is absolutely fantastic for a quick set of calcs with unverified data pulled out of various 'net sites!

So, about 6,000psi for 1m^3 ?

I was just looking at this:

http://www.nuvair.com/storage-storagetank.shtml

Their NUVT6000 tanks will do it. Specs:

Outside diameter: 9.4in
Height: 52in
Weight (empty): 195lbs.
Air capacity at pressure: 510.5 ft^3
Internal volume: 2640 in^3

The 30kWh you are are aiming for would require about 360 m^3 of air (perm my prior calcs). This would require 25 of these tanks.

To double check, the internal volume of these tanks is given at 2640 in^3. 25 tanks come in at 66,000 in^3, which is just over 1 m^3.

What this highlights for me is just how large a vessel might be required to store such a volume of air at 6,000psi due to how strong it has to be. The external volume of these 25 tanks is approximately 1.5 m^3. Not too bad. We are taking about a 5 x 5 tank layout; about 4 ft x 4 ft and, say, 6 ft high with hoses, fittings and other hardware. They would weigh-in at about 5,000lbs, which might require some accommodations for a typical home garage.

Do these numbers describe what you are trying to accomplish to a reasonable approximation?

How noisy is the process of getting the energy back out of this storage system?

I had to look at a comparison with the energy density of current Lithium-Ion batteries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery

Volumetric energy density: 900 to 1,900 J/cm^3

We need about 108,000,000 J per house, per day.

If I assume 1,000 J/cm^3, that would require about 108,000 cm^3 in Lithium-Ion batteries or 0.108 m^3. Yikes! On first inspection, a 1 m^3 bank of Lithium-Ion batteries would allow you to run a house for ten days!

Not sure what that conclusion means, but Lithium-Ion, cost and other issues aside, looks very interesting.

How about gasoline? I know, horrible, but I have to ask.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density

Volumetric energy density: 34,000,000,000 J/m^3

Assuming 100% energy conversion we would need 0.0318 m^3 of gasoline to power a house for an entire day. Assuming a generator is 10% efficient that number becomes 0.3176 m^3 (317.6 liters or 83 US Gallons).

I won't do the numbers, but Liquid Propane looks very interesting.

Clearly your long term competition might very well be electrochemical battery or graphene supercapacitor technology.

I realize you are working on a method to be used in storing excess energy for later delivery (or smoothing out the spikes in infrastructure demands). If I was looking for emergency power backup today I think I might have a very serious look at Liquid Propane. I has none of the storage problems of gasoline (namely that it degrades if not attended to) and it is very easy to use for cooking as well as lighting, if required.

Would I want every house in my neighborhood to have LP tanks, gasoline tanks, compressed air tanks or huge banks of Lithium-Ion batteries? Probably not.

All of these options are scary in one way or another. Imagine Hurricane Sandy, Katrina or a good size earthquake here in CA in a scenario where every home has one of these technologies. Could get scary very fast.

Same issues as with electric cars. Very interesting until you have an incident involving several cars. Formula 1 teams had to make special accommodations to use their electrical KERS systems, some of which run at 375V.

Because of this I would think that your technology (or any other high-duration, high energy-density storage solution) might be best deployed at the substation or generation point rather than installed in every home. Most people are not really equipped to intelligently deal with electricity. Sometimes it is a good idea for power to go out.