New uses for fossil assets |
Repurposing fossil fuel plants as storage facilities: an update from E2S Power
E2S Power, a company established four years ago with the objective of transforming fossil-fuelled power assets into clean energy storage facilities (see MPS, Nov/Dec 2021, pp 31-33 and April 2022, p 12), is delivering a 250 kWh thermal energy storage pilot to India Power Corporation
The pilot unit for India, which was designed, built, and tested at E2S Power’s facility in nine months, has successfully passed factory acceptance tests and will be delivered to site in the first half of 2023. The collaboration between E2S and India Power, in one of world’s most important energy markets, has the potential to contribute significantly to India’s renewable energy growth and energy transition.
Figure 1. E2S Power 250 kWh pilot thermal energy storage unit
Avoiding stranded assets India’s government is targeting 500 GW of renewable generating capacity by 2030, and around 50 GW of coal capacity is expected to be decommissioned in the coming years. In Europe and the US combined, over 160 GW of coal plants are scheduled to be retired by 2030. Decisions will need to be made very soon about what to do about these potentially stranded assets, how to address security of energy supply and how to maintain a stable and reliable energy system while accommodating the intermittency of renewables.
A long-duration energy storage technology that can be deployed in the near term will need to be part of the solution. E2S Power’s technology can indeed be used in the near term to provide urgently needed energy storage while repurposing retired thermal power plants, retaining jobs, and supporting clean power and carbon reduction. E2S Power’s thermal energy storage solution, called TWEST (Travelling Wave Energy Storage), converts electricity from renewable sources into heat, stores it using advanced storage media, and returns the stored energy in the form of superheated steam to power existing steam turbine generators during peak periods. See Figures 2a and 2b.
TWEST is designed to integrate easily into existing power plants with three primary interfaces: electricity supply for charging the system; feedwater input; and steam supply into the existing steam cycle. The system is packaged in standard modules that can be stacked up to meet the storage requirements
Figure 2. Schematic of the TWEST concept
14 | April 2023|
www.modernpowersystems.com
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