Flexibility and robustness of a high-temperature air/ceramic thermocline heat storage pilot

Nicolas Lopez Ferber (1, 2, 3) , Q. Falcoz (1) , Doan Pham Minh (2) , J.F. Hoffmann (3) , Anca Meffre (3) , Ange Nzihou (2) , V. Goetz (1)

1 PROMES - Procédés, Matériaux et Energie Solaire
2 RAPSODEE - Centre de recherche d'Albi en génie des procédés des solides divisés, de l'énergie et de l'environnement
3 SAS Eco-Tech Ceram

A high-temperature air/ceramic thermocline packed-bed heat storage pilot was designed and built to measure the effects of operating parameters and quality of the heat resource on its performance, with a horizontal duct of square section. The influence of inlet air flow rate during the discharging phase and the impact of a degraded inlet heat resource during the charging phase were studied. The results revealed that the horizontal orientation of the bed didn’t generate a thermal radial gradient. Results also show that the overall cycle efficiency is weakly affected by the changes in the operating conditions. Thermocline heat storage is surprisingly well-suited to managing resource instabilities. It forms a robust, flexible high temperature storage system applicable for industrial use to recover and deliver erratically produced waste heat.

Mots clés: High temperature; Thermal behaviour; Industrial waste heat; Thermal energy storage (TES); Air

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]

Nicolas Lopez Ferber, Q. Falcoz, Doan Pham Minh, J.F. Hoffmann, Anca Meffre, et al.. Flexibility and robustness of a high-temperature air/ceramic thermocline heat storage pilot. Journal of Energy Storage, 2019, 21, pp.393-404. ⟨10.1016/j.est.2018.11.034⟩. ⟨hal-01969631⟩