Denmark’s Largest Battery – One Step Nearer to Storing Inexperienced Energy in Stones – Watts Up With That?
The concept of storing renewable energies in stones has come one step closer to realization with the construction of the GridScale demonstration system. With a capacity of 10 MWh, the system will be the largest electricity storage facility in Denmark.
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
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PICTURE: IF THERE IS AN EXCESSIVE ELECTRICITY FROM WIND OR SOLAR, THE ENERGY STORAGE WILL BE CHARGED. This is done through a system of compressors and turbines that generate heat energy from … show more. CREDIT: CLAUS RYE, STIESDAL STORAGE TECHNOLOGIES.
Pea-sized stones that are heated to 600 ° C in large, insulated steel tanks form the heart of a new innovation project that aims to achieve a breakthrough in the storage of intermittent wind and solar power.
The technology that stores electrical energy as heat in stones is called GridScale and could be a cost-effective and efficient alternative to storing solar and wind power in lithium batteries. While lithium batteries can only be supplied with energy cost-effectively for short periods of up to four hours, a GridScale power storage system supports the power supply for longer periods of time – up to about a week – cost-effectively.
“The only real challenge in building a 100 percent renewable energy supply is that we cannot store the electricity generated in windy and sunny weather for later use. Demand and production do not follow the same pattern. There are no commercial solutions to this problem yet, but we hope that we can achieve this with our GridScale energy storage system, ”says Henrik Stiesdal, founder of the air conditioning company Stiesdal Storage Technologies, which is behind the technology.
In short, GridScale technology is all about heating and cooling basalt, which is crushed into tiny, pea-sized stones in one or more insulated steel tanks. The storage is charged through a system of compressors and turbines that pumps thermal energy from one or more cool stone-filled storage tanks into a similar number of hot stone-filled storage tanks when there is excess wind or solar energy.
This means that the stones in the cold tanks get very cold, while in the hot tanks they get very hot. in fact up to 600 ° C. The heat can be stored in the stones for many days and the number of sets of stone-filled tanks can be varied depending on the length of storage time required.
When electricity is needed again, the process is reversed, so the stones in the hot tanks get colder while they get warmer in the cold tanks. The system is based on an inexpensive storage material and a mature, well-known technology for charging and discharging.
“Basalt is a cheap and sustainable material that can store large amounts of energy in a small space and can withstand countless charges and discharges from the storage system. We are now developing a prototype for the storage technology to show the way to solve the problem of storing renewable energies – one of the greatest challenges for the development of sustainable energy worldwide, ”says Ole Alm, head of development at the energy company Andel, who is also part of the project.
The GridScale prototype will be the largest storage facility in the Danish electricity system and a major challenge will be to make storage flexibility available in the electricity markets in such a way that the best possible value is achieved. As a result, this will also be part of the project.
The exact location of the prototype warehouse has yet to be determined. However, it will definitely be in the eastern part of Denmark in South or West Zealand or on Lolland-Falster, where in particular the production from new large PV systems is growing faster than consumption can keep up.
The full name of the innovation project is “GridScale – low-cost electricity storage on a large scale” and will run for three years with a total budget of DKK 35 million (EUR 4.7 million). The project is funded with DKK 21 million (EUR 2.8 million) from the Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program (EUDP).
In addition to the companies Stiesdal and Andel, the partner group includes the University of Aarhus (AU), the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Welcon, BWSC (Burmeister Wain Scandinavian Contractor), Energi Danmark and Energy Cluster Denmark.
The partners will carry out an energy system analysis and design optimization for a stone storage facility as well as optimize the technical concepts and develop the GridScale technology into a market-ready, scalable solution.
For example, the European energy system model developed by AU is combined with the model developed by DTU for optimizing turbines in order to gain an insight into the potential role of stone storage in a European context and to optimize the design:
“The transition to renewable energies is changing the way the energy system works – simply because wind and solar energy are not necessarily produced when we need them. Therefore, we need to find out how the technical design can best be adapted to the energy system and in which countries and when in the green transition the technology has the greatest value. We will try to identify the combination of energy technologies that offer the greatest value for the storage solution. I think that stone storage technology has great potential in many parts of the world and could be of great advantage in the green transition, ”says Associate Professor Gorm Bruun Andresen from the Institute of Mechanical and Production Engineering at Aarhus University.
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From EurekAlert!
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