State-of-the-art and Future Development of Sensible Heat Thermal Electricity Storage Systems

Wind and solar energy have a variable and intermittent nature, a characteristic which forces fossil fuel thermal power plants to be used as backup units for grid stabilization. The development and installation of large-scale cost-effective energy storage systems is necessary to adapt electricity generated by renewables to the users’ demand. But, the installation of conventional energy storage can add new capacity and further reduce the thermal power plants operational utilization factor. For these reasons, Integrated Energy Storage Systems need to be developed and installed. Pumped Thermal Electricity Storage (PTES) is an emerging technology which can offer a significant contribution to future large-scale electric storage applications. It is based on a high temperature heat pump cycle, which transforms electrical energy into thermal energy and stores it inside two thermal reservoirs, matched with a thermal engine cycle, which converts the stored thermal energy back into electrical ener...