Highly load-flexible coal-fired power plants through the integration of molten salt storage

The increasing share of fluctuating renewables in the energy mix is putting pressure on conventional power plants to increase their operating flexibility. A major challenge in this context is reducing the minimum load of coal-fired plants. In addition to improved burner design and optimized control strategies, integration of a thermal storage system could enable a reduction of the minimum load to virtually 0%. This, while keeping the boiler in operation allowing for rapid ramp-up of the power output when needed. Based on process simulations in EBSILON Professional, this paper assesses the potential and challenges related to the integration of a molten salt storage system in a 550 MWel coal-fired plant. Several storage integration strategies have been considered, resulting in overall round-trip efficiencies between 60 and 65.5%. The specific costs of the investigated storage system were found to range between 26 and 44 €/kWhth.      «

The increasing share of fluctuating renewables in the energy mix is putting pressure on conventional power plants to increase their operating flexibility. A major challenge in this context is reducing the minimum load of coal-fired plants. In addition to improved burner design and optimized control strategies, integration of a thermal storage system could enable a reduction of the minimum load to virtually 0%. This, while keeping the boiler in operation allowing for rapid ramp-up of the pow...     »