One hundred tons of molten salt circulate through the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) test facility in Cologne. The molten salt is alternately heated and cooled from 250 to 560 degrees Celsius. Opened on 15 September 2017, the Test Facility for Thermal Energy Storage in Molten Salt (TESIS) is used to test molten salt storage systems and individual components in a globally unique form. Energy storage facilities play a key role in transforming our energy system. Thermal storage systems, in particular, can become an effficient – with very low losses – and cost-effective method for temporary energy storage.
The key role of thermal storage systems
The industrial-scale system allows scientists and industrial partners to continue developing cost-efficient thermal storage concepts for controllable, renewable electricity in power plant technology and high-energy industrial processes. DLR researchers expect that further developments with the TESIS test facility will reduce the cost of molten salt storage by up to 40 percent.
“Among the greatest challenges of the Energiewende (energy transition) is the sustainable management of energy and resources. Efficient storage systems are an important method of regulating supply and demand. In the TESIS thermo-battery, DLR is providing a system that will enable the ongoing development of application-based storage technologies on the industrial scale,” said Karsten Lemmer, DLR Executive Board Member for Energy and Transportation. Salt storage facilities have been used in solar power plants for years, where they ensure that the facilities can produce electricity round the clock. Salts will be a crucial element in future energy storage facilities that are based on the conversion of power to heat and vice versa. They might also be deployed to absorb immense quantities of waste heat in high-energy industrial processes – for instance in metal, cement or glass production – releasing the energy downstream as needed. Industrial partners can use the TESIS facility to test their concepts or components and take them to market maturity by making the most of the competencies provided by the research community.
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