Carnot Battery Based on Brayton Supercritical CO 2 Thermal Machines Using Concentrated Solar Thermal Energy as a Low-Temperature Source

José Ignacio Linares (), Arturo Martín-Colino, Eva Arenas, María José Montes, Alexis Cantizano and José Rubén Pérez-Domínguez
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José Ignacio Linares: Rafael Mariño Chair on New Energy Technologies, Comillas Pontifical University, Alberto Aguilera 15, 28015 Madrid, Spain
Arturo Martín-Colino: Rafael Mariño Chair on New Energy Technologies, Comillas Pontifical University, Alberto Aguilera 15, 28015 Madrid, Spain
Eva Arenas: Rafael Mariño Chair on New Energy Technologies, Comillas Pontifical University, Alberto Aguilera 15, 28015 Madrid, Spain
María José Montes: Department of Energy Engineering, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Juan del Rosal 12, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Alexis Cantizano: Rafael Mariño Chair on New Energy Technologies, Comillas Pontifical University, Alberto Aguilera 15, 28015 Madrid, Spain
José Rubén Pérez-Domínguez: Rafael Mariño Chair on New Energy Technologies, Comillas Pontifical University, Alberto Aguilera 15, 28015 Madrid, Spain

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 9, 1-24

Abstract: Carnot batteries store surplus power as heat. They consist of a heat pump, which upgrades a low-temperature thermal energy storage, a high-temperature storage system for the upgraded thermal energy, and a heat engine that converts the stored high-temperature thermal energy into power. A Carnot battery is proposed based on supercritical CO 2 Brayton thermodynamic cycles. The low-temperature storage is a two-tank molten salt system at 380 °C/290 °C fed by a field of parabolic trough collectors. The high-temperature storage consists of another two-tank molten salt system at 589 °C/405 °C. Printed circuit heat exchangers would be required to withstand the high pressure of the cycles, but shell and tube heat exchangers are proposed instead to avoid clogging issues with molten salts. The conventional allocation of high-temperature molten salt heat exchangers is then modified. Using solar energy to enhance the low-temperature thermal source allowed a round-trip efficiency of 1.15 (COP of 2.46 and heat engine efficiency of 46.5%), thus increasing the stored power. The basic configuration has a levelised cost of storage of USD 376/MWh while replacing the shell and tube heat exchangers with hybrid printed circuit heat exchangers is expected to lower the cost to USD 188/MWh.

Keywords: Carnot batteries; Brayton supercritical CO 2 thermodynamic cycle; high-temperature heat pump; pumped thermal energy storage; thermal energy storage; renewable energies dispatchability (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: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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