Aalborg CSP Can Retrofit Coal Plants into Thermal Energy Storage
Researchers at DLR, and NREL, and the Bill Gates-funded start-up Malta have been investigating converting coal plants into grid-scale thermal energy storage for curtailed intermittent renewable energy, as low-cost heat “batteries.” (Thermal energy storage was originally developed as storage for Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), but it can alternatively be deployed “standalone” to store energy for the grid.)
Conversion would repurpose most of a coal plant’s assets. Instead of burning coal for the heat, tanks of molten salts would be heated electrically by surplus PV and wind on the grid to “charge” the storage, which could then be “discharged” back to the grid on demand using the former coal plant’s existing power generation and transmission assets.
Now Denmark’s Aalborg CSP A/S has taken a first step to commercialization. Their Integrated Energy System (IES) department, led by Executive Vice President Peter Badstue Jensen now offers their retrofitting of coal plants into thermal energy storage commercially.
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Atlantis Viewpoint
Turning coal plants into modern renewable thermal power plants based on energy storage would repurpose almost all the assets. Most of the existing components of a coal-fired power plant would be utilized in a retrofitted version, for the supply of 'on-demand' electricity to the grid. The idea is based on the use of proven technologies, like CSP's molten salt thermal energy storage, so the only real obstacle is to prove the future feasibility and the rate of return for investors over the plant lifetime.
The transition to green energy is more and more real with innovations like these. A great step forward, though there is still a lot of work to be done. Once this technology is proven, coal plants and other high emission sources of electricity cannot continue to be the main power supply. True Clean Energy such as Concentrated Solar Power or wind are brilliant sources of clean electricity. Let's take advantage of them!
