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Energy handling system comprising an energy storage device with a phase change material

a phase change material and energy storage technology, applied in the field of energy handling systems, can solve the problems of limited water heat capacity storage, limited water as heat storage material, and prohibitive pressure vessel costs, and achieve the effect of simple end effect and cost reduction

Inactive Publication Date: 2013-03-07
SIEMENS AG
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The system enables effective thermal energy storage and efficient conversion to electric energy, addressing the limitations of existing systems by providing a scalable, cost-effective solution for storing surplus energy from intermittent sources like wind turbines and solar plants, and can quickly respond to peak energy demands.

Problems solved by technology

However, unless sophisticated pressure vessels are used the maximum temperature of heat capacity storage in water is limited to 100° C.
Since for large capacity storage the cost of pressure vessels would be prohibitive, the use of water as a heat storage material is limited to a maximum temperature of 100° C. However, a maximum temperature of 100° C. is much too low in order to provide any useful thermodynamic efficiency of a heat engine, e.g. a steam turbo generator, which is to be operated on demand for release of the stored thermal energy.
Consequently, the benefits of the high heat capacity of water cannot be exploited in practice for high-volume energy storage.
However, solids generally have low heat capacity, and this leads to high volume requirements and to a low energy density.
However, molten salts have the drawback that they are generally not stable at temperatures much above 400° C., thereby limiting the thermodynamic efficiencies of related heat engines.
They also have the drawback that initial melting and re-melting on unintended solidification is very difficult due to the low conductivity of crystalline salts.
One problem related to the known heat storage systems is that for large scale energy storage, such as for storing energy produced from wind farms for longer time periods (hours), the capacity of known heat storage systems is not sufficient.
If one would scale up a known heat storage system to a system having sufficient capacity for such purposes, the prize of such a scaled up system would be relatively high, which makes a scaled up system unattractive because of economical reasons.
Even further, for a scaled-up heat storage system it is difficult and not cost-effective to recover the stored energy.

Method used

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  • Energy handling system comprising an energy storage device with a phase change material
  • Energy handling system comprising an energy storage device with a phase change material
  • Energy handling system comprising an energy storage device with a phase change material

Examples

Experimental program
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first embodiment

[0088]FIG. 1 shows main components of an energy storage device 100 in accordance with the invention. A first container 110 comprising a PCM 115 is enclosed by a second container 120. The two containers 110, 120 are at least partly being thermally isolated from each other by a thermal isolation material 125.

[0089]At least one heat generation element 130 is receiving energy from an external energy source 170. The energy being received by the heat generation element 130 is used for heating the PCM 115. According to the embodiment described here the provided energy is electric energy, which is converted into thermal energy by the heat generation element 130. Further, at least one heat extraction element 140 is providing thermal energy to an external heat engine 180. The external heat engine 180 is used for converting the received thermal energy into mechanical energy. According to the embodiment described here the mechanical energy provided by the heat engine 180 is converted by means o...

second embodiment

[0092]FIG. 2 shows main components of an energy storage device 200 in accordance with the invention. From FIG. 2 it can be seen, that the heat generation element 130 is not in physical connection with the PCM 115. If the element 130 comprises at least one inductive heating element, this will allow for an effective energy respectively heat transfer to the PCM 115. In this case energy is preferably supplied to the heat generation element 130 as an AC-voltage. Thereby, the frequency of the AC may be the frequency of a utility grid. In order to adapt the applied frequency a frequency controller 235 is provided. With this frequency controller 235 the frequency of the AC voltage can be scaled to another frequency than the frequency of the utility grid. The frequency may also for various embodiments be alternated during operation.

[0093]For an even further embodiment of the invention, the heat generation element 130 may be directly connected to the utility grid. Thereby, a surplus of energy...

third embodiment

[0096]FIG. 3 shows main components of an energy storage device 300 in accordance with the invention. As can be seen from FIG. 3, at least one heat extraction element 140, which is used for extracting thermal energy from the PCM 115, can be located such that it is not in direct physically contact with the PCM 115.

[0097]FIG. 4 shows an induction coil 432, which may be integrated for instance in the thermal isolation material 125 of the energy storage device 300 shown in FIG. 3. The windings of the induction coil 432 are not in direct physical contact with the PCM 115 to be heated, but are separated by some refractory material 412.

[0098]FIG. 5 shows an energy handling system 502 for extracting thermal energy from an energy storage device 500 and for converting the extracted energy into electric energy.

[0099]The energy handling system 502 comprises the already mentioned energy storage device 500 and an energy conversion device, which comprises a steam turbine 580 and an electric generat...

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PUM

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Abstract

Disclosed is an energy handling system including an energy storage device, which includes a Phase Change Material for absorbing and temporarily storing thermal energy, which has been provided by an energy source, and a heat extraction element for extracting thermal energy from the Phase Change Material. The energy handling system further includes an energy conversion device, which is operatively connected to the heat extraction element and which is capable of converting thermal energy into electric energy.

Description

FIELD OF INVENTION[0001]The present invention relates to an energy handling system, which is capable of absorbing and temporarily storing thermal energy with an energy storage device and which is further capable of extracting thermal energy from the energy storage device.ART BACKGROUND[0002]The production of electric power from various types of alternative energy sources such as wind turbines, solar power plants and wave energy plants is not continuous. The production may be dependent on environmental parameters such as for instance wind speed (for wind turbines), insulation (for solar power plant) and wave height and direction (for wave energy plants). There is very often little or no correlation between energy production and energy demand.[0003]One known approach to solve the problem of uncorrelated electric power production and electric power demand is to temporally store energy, which has been produced but which has not been demanded, and to release the stored energy at times at...

Claims

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Application Information

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Patent Type & Authority Applications(United States)
IPC IPC(8): F28D17/00F28D20/02
CPCF28D20/021F28F2270/00F28D2020/0047Y02E60/145Y02E60/14F28D20/02
Inventor STIESDAL, HENRIKKIRKPATRICK, LANNYPALISZEWSKI, ANDY
Owner SIEMENS AG