L R AS Published on Sunday 24 March 2019 - n° 269 - Categories:Germany, storage area

Thermal storage in coal-fired power plants

Germany plans to install thermal storage in coal-fired power plants. A pilot project plans to replace the boiler with a molten salt thermal storage tank to create giant Carnot batteries.

This solution would allow a large part of the existing infrastructure to be reused. This idea was put forward by the German Aerospace Centre (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt or DLR). A single test will be sufficient to determine the viability of this solution. It could take place within three years (the time needed to develop the engineering, and to build the tank). Thermal storage tanks are relatively simple and low-risk engineering concepts. They require only a steel tank, a concrete base and the salt itself.

Most or all of the generating capacity of coal-fired power plants could be converted to Carnot batteries. The cost of conversion should not be excessive as much of the existing infrastructure would be reused.

To operate, the batteries would use a currently reduced amount of renewable energy. The Carnot batteries would probably complement the lithium-ion battery installations on the German grid. The combination of lithium-ion and Carnot batteries could maintain grid stability and allow a transfer of charge that would allow grids to operate at high levels of renewable energy for hours or even days.

GreenTech Media of 18 March

Editor's note It should come as no surprise that coal-fired power stations can be converted into storage power stations. The facilities are there. So is the technical knowledge. You just have to try it out with the current installations to test the operation. This will result in another form of storage that was not previously imagined.

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