Funded by the UK's Engineering and Nature Research Council (EPSRC), the Birmingham Energy Storage Centre has launched three new projects to develop and integrate large-scale energy storage technologies for the grid.
Increasing the amount and variety of renewable energy sources is already critical to achieving the country's net-zero emissions target. However, the varying properties of existing wind and solar energy both in scale and in time scales (ranging from seconds to seasons) constrain the development of grid-scale energy storage technology, which only depends on the amount of existing renewable energy sources. As well as existing energy storage technologies, it is difficult to meet the needs of net zero emission goals and the growth of electricity consumption in the next few decades.
The development of new and alternative energy storage methods to effectively manage the power grid will be an important feature of future energy systems committed to using new energy sources to reduce carbon emissions. To meet the above requirements, on the one hand, it is necessary to rapidly increase the storage capacity and types of current renewable energy;
“It is a great honour for our colleagues at the Birmingham Energy Storage Centre to receive project funding to address the challenges of grid-scale storage. The technical results developed in this research, and the promise of integrating these solutions into existing and future infrastructure, All will play a key role in our nation's commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050."
Led by the University of Sheffield and technically supported by Dr Jonathan Radcliffe, the Net Zero Grid Project for Integrated Energy Storage will determine how energy storage devices of different scales and technologies can be integrated into the grid.
Building on the £5m MANIFEST project chaired by Dr Radcliffe, the project will examine where and how energy storage is connected to the grid, how it is controlled and what policy and market conditions are needed to meet grid storage requirements.
Plasma-Assisted Thermochemical Energy Storage (PATCH) for Carnot Cells
PATCH is a collaborative project led by Professor Yongliang Li of the Birmingham Energy Storage Centre and supported by Professor Gary Leeke, in collaboration with the University of Liverpool and the London School of Economics. The project will focus on the development of a new high-temperature thermochemical heat storage technology, with expected results to be used in the integrated retrofit of thermal power plants.
Specifically, the principle is to flexibly absorb intermittent and excess grid power through a plasma-assisted reduction reaction (charging process), enabling "charged" thermochemical heat storage materials to be used as "fuel" for the grid during peak demand periods generate electricity. This method is also cost-effective because it can use recycled scrap metal materials to make thermochemical heat storage materials.
Boosting high-performance compressed air energy storage with high-temperature thermal storage (Hi-CAES)
The Hi-CAES project, led by the University of Warwick and technically supported by Academician Ding Yulong, aims to combine compressed air energy storage (CAES) with high temperature thermal energy storage (HTES) to achieve high energy conversion efficiency, high energy and power density and Operational flexibility.
Building on the NexGen-TEST project which will use a high voltage (33-132 kV) low current power supply to generate high temperature heat (600-950 DegC) and store the heat in a high temperature composite phase change material. This will reduce energy loss And eliminate the need for transformers, thereby reducing costs and helping relieve network congestion.
