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Southern Research Institute and the Energy Department have inked a $1.05 million cooperative agreement to create a thermochemical energy storage system for a DOE solar program.
The nonprofit research organization said Thursday it will produce a TCES system made of calcium-based sorbent that stores energy in a “reversible closed-loop endothermic-exothermic chemical reaction cycle.”
The Concentrating Solar Power: Efficiently Leveraging Equilibrium Mechanisms for Engineering New Thermochemical Storage funding program aims to develop an energy storage system that concentrates solar power through thermal technology to generate electricity consistently even without the sun.
It is part of DOE’s SunShot Initiative to foster the cost-competitiveness of solar energy compared to traditional energy sources by 2020.
Southern Research Institute said its TCES system will be designed to cost less than the currently used molten salt storage systems, pack the same amount of energy in a more compact system and operate up to 900 degrees Celsius.
“Southern Research Institute is excited and honored to be selected by DOE for this project,” said Michael Johns, vice president for engineering at Southern Research Institute.
Santosh Gangwal and Ryan Melsert are the principal investigators for this project.
