High temperature storage

[Adriaan Kragten]

I just viewed an interesting video of Engineering with Rosa: "Building Blocks for Energy Storage MGA Thermal tour" link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpYFdUc1ot0 This video describes the idea of the Australian company MGA to store thermal energy in carbon blocks filled with small aluminium particles. One goes to a temperture of 750 °C. The aluminium particles melt at a temperature of about 600 °C. So the melting energy is given back if the temperture is lowered. The heat capacity is therefore rather large for a certain volume. The energy loss is about 2 % per day and the system can be used to flatten the daily and weekly fluctuations of solar and wind energy. The generated heat is primarely used for industrial prosesses which need a lot of heat. Generation of electricity is also possible but has a rather low overall efficiency because of the Carnot cycle.

[DamonHD]

I'm a happy users of phase-change heat storage at home already, though at rather gentler temperatures!  In the summer topped up from solar PV diversion, right now when the grid is green from lots of wind generation.

https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-solar-DHW-for-16WW-UniQ-and-PV-diversion.html



Rgds

Damon

[Jackir]

It's great to see innovations like this being explored to address energy storage challenges and balance renewable energy fluctuations. The 2% daily energy loss seems reasonable, and it makes sense to use the stored heat for industrial processes that require a lot of energy.

[Jackir]

That video on MGA's thermal energy storage with carbon blocks and aluminum particles sounds pretty cool! It's fascinating how they use the heat capacity to store energy and help with renewable energy fluctuations. Industrial processes getting a heat boost from it makes sense too.