Recent Progress on Thermal Energy Storage for Coal-Fired Power Plant

With countries proposing the goal of carbon neutrality, the clean transformation of energy structure has become a hot and trendy issue internationally. Renewable energy generation will account for the main proportion, but it also leads to the problem of unstable electricity supply. At present, large-scale energy storage technology is not yet mature. Improving the flexibility of coal-fired power plants to suppress the instability of renewable energy generation is a feasible path. Thermal energy storage is a feasible technology to improve the flexibility of coal-fired power plants. This article provides a review of the research on the flexibility transformation of coal-fired power plants based on heat storage technology, mainly including medium to low-temperature heat storage based on hot water tanks and high-temperature heat storage based on molten salt. The current technical difficulties are summarized, and future development prospects are presented. The combination of the thermal energy storage system and coal-fired power generation system is the foundation, and the control of the inclined temperature layer and the selection and development of molten salt are key issues. The authors hope that the research in this article can provide a reference for the flexibility transformation research of coal-fired power plants, and promote the application of heat storage foundation in specific coal-fired power plant transformation projects.