Abstract
U.S. industry sectors accounted for 33% of total energy consumption in 2021 according to the Energy Information Agency. Industrial process heat accounts for 70% of the industry energy use with application temperatures ranging from 60°–1100°C. Industrial processes heavily rely on fossil fuels including cheap coal or natural gas and differ widely in operating conditions and load requirements which makes them difficult to standardize and imposes challenges in decarbonization. To this end, we have developed a particle-based thermal energy storage (TES) technology integrated with renewable energy sources from concentrating solar thermal power (CST) and/or photovoltaic (PV) power. The particle TES system uses low-cost and highly stable silica sand and can provide industrial process heat (IPH) over a wide range of temperatures. The TES system can serve as a uniform energy supply configuration integrated with renewable power to supply 24/7 heat for industry decarbonization. This paper focuses on the Levelized Cost of Heat (LCOH) and investigated the sensitivity of the LCOH to various economic parameters including the capital costs of the particle-TES system and solar tower system. This paper shows the economic potentials of the particle-TES for IPH applications. Various scenarios of combined on-site CST, PV, electric heater, and TES system capacities were considered to determine configurations of the CSP/PV/TES system that could fulfill the heat demand with minor contributions from grid backup. Conditions necessary to approach an LCOH target of ∼$0.02/kWht were evaluated.
