Ricerca GruppiSERGPreview - Research IncubationTEES Thermo-Electric Energy Storage with Geothermal Heat Integration

THERMOELECTRIC ENERGY STORAGE WITH GEOTHERMAL HEAT INTEGRATION – EXERGY ANALYSIS

The proposed Thermo-Electric Energy Storage (TEES) system addresses the need for peak-load support (1-2 daily hours of operation) for small-distributed users who are often owners of small/medium size PV systems (4 to 50 kWe) and wish to introduce a reliable storage system able to compensate the productivity/load mismatch. The proposed thermoelectric system relies on sensible heat storage: a warm resource at 120/160°C (a hot water reservoir system), and a cold resource at -10 /-20°C (a cold reservoir system containing water and ethylene glycol). The power cycle operates through a trans-critical CO₂ scheme including recuperation; in the storage mode, a supercritical heat pump restores heat to the hot reservoir, while a cooling cycle (using a suitable refrigerant) cools the cold reservoir. The power cycle and the heat pump benefit from geothermal heat integration at low-medium temperatures (80-120°C), thereby allowing to achieve a marginal round-trip efficiency (electric-to-electric) in the range from 50 to 75% (not considering geothermal heat integration).

The three systems are analyzed with different resource conditions and parameters setting (hot storage temperature, pressure levels for all cycles, ambient temperature…); an exergy analysis is performed to identify which are the critical items in the overall system.