Carnot Battery

Project description

With the growing share of renewable energy, the need for cost-effective and flexible electricity storage solutions is increasing, which is why an intelligent integration of the electricity and heat sectors is of major importance.

Carnot batteries offer a promising approach in this regard: they store electricity during periods of surplus in the form of thermal energy and provide this energy flexibly as electricity or heat when required. At the Wunsiedel Energy Park, UBT Future Energy Lab Wunsiedel GmbH is developing a modular Carnot battery test facility, consisting of three subsystems: a high-temperature heat pump using a natural refrigerant to convert electricity into heat, a hot water stratified storage tank, and an Organic Rankine Cycle as a thermal power unit for reconverting heat into electricity.

The facility is designed as a flexible research infrastructure that enables both the integrated analysis of the overall system and the isolated investigation of individual subsystems in a wide range of realistic application scenarios. The comprehensive instrumentation of the test facility provides the basis for the experimental investigation and analysis of various operating strategies.

The aim of the experimental studies is to gain real operational experience and thereby bridge the gap between laboratory research and successful industrial integration. The insights gained are intended to reduce technical and economic barriers to the market introduction of Carnot batteries and to provide concrete design and operational recommendations for different fields of application – ranging from waste heat utilisation to municipal heat and electricity supply.