Rankine Carnot Batteries with the Integration of Thermal Energy Sources: A Review

Guido Francesco Frate, Lorenzo Ferrari and Umberto Desideri
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Guido Francesco Frate: Department of Energy, System, Territory and Construction Engineering, University of Pisa, Largo Lucio Lazzarino 1, 56122 Pisa, Italy
Lorenzo Ferrari: Department of Energy, System, Territory and Construction Engineering, University of Pisa, Largo Lucio Lazzarino 1, 56122 Pisa, Italy
Umberto Desideri: Department of Energy, System, Territory and Construction Engineering, University of Pisa, Largo Lucio Lazzarino 1, 56122 Pisa, Italy

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 18, 1-28

Abstract: This paper provides an overview of a novel electric energy storage technology. The Thermally Integrated Pumped Thermal Electricity Storage (TI-PTES) stores electric energy as thermal exergy. Compared to standard PTES, TI-PTES takes advantage of both electric and low-temperature heat inputs. Therefore, TI-PTES is a hybrid technology between storage and electric production from low-temperature heat. TI-PTES belongs to a technology group informally referred to as Carnot Batteries (CBs). As the TI-PTES grows in popularity, several configurations have been proposed, with different claimed performances, but no standard has emerged to date. The study provides an overview of the component and operating fluid selection, and it describes the configurations proposed in the literature. Some issues regarding the performance, the ratio between thermal and electrical inputs, and the actual TI-PTES utilisation in realistic scenarios are discussed. As a result, some guidelines are defined. The configurations that utilise high-temperature thermal reservoirs are more extensively studied, due to their superior thermodynamic performance. However, low-temperature TI-PTES may achieve similar performance and have easier access to latent heat storage in the form of water ice. Finally, to achieve satisfactory performance, TI-PTES must absorb a thermal input several times larger than the electric one. This limits TI-PTES to small-scale applications.

Keywords: thermally integrated pumped thermal electricity storage; Carnot batteries; power-to-heat; thermal exergy storage; electric energy storage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

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