Volume 5: Innovative Solutions for Energy Transitions: Part IV

Energy Management and Enhanced Flexibility of Power Stations via Thermal Energy Storage and Secondary Power Cycles Panagiotis Romanos, Antonio Marco Pantaleo, Christos N. Markides

Abstract

The operation of power plants must meet a series of requirements in order to enable the increasing penetration of intermittent renewable energy and the consequent intensifying demand for flexible generation. It is proposed here that during off-peak demand, steam can be extracted from Rankine-cycle power stations for the charging of thermal storage tanks that contain suitable phase-change materials (PCMs); during peak demand time, these thermal energy storage (TES) tanks can act as the heat sources of secondary thermal power plants in order to generate power, for example as evaporators of organic Rankine cycle (ORC) plants that are suitable for power generation at reduced temperatures and smaller scales. This type of solution offers greater flexibility than TES-only solutions that store thermal energy and then release this back to the base power station, in that it allows both derating and over-generation compared to the base power-station. The approach is here applied to a case study of a 670- MW rated nuclear power station, since nuclear power stations are generally suitable for baseload generation and the proposed system configuration could increase the operational flexibility of such plants.

Keywords energy management, flexible energy system, flexible generation, generation integrated energy storage, phase change materials, smart grids