[Call: Ayudas para contratos Ramón y Cajal (RYC) 2023]

The main line of this project is the development of thermal energy storage solutions for a liquid air energy storage (LAES) system. LAES uses liquid air as an energy vector to store electricity from the grid representing an alternative to compressed air energy storage or pumped hydro energy storage systems. LAES is made of off-the shelf components being a mature technology with a relatively low cost and long-life span. One of the main drawbacks of the LAES is the low efficiency due to the high energy needed to produce liquid air. Nevertheless, it is well known in the literature that thermal energy storage (TES) is a pivotal component to increase the system efficiency to be competitive with other storage solutions. Thermal energy storage can recover the cold energy rejected from the discharge process to decrease the energy consumption to produce liquid air. Similarly, the heat rejected during the liquefaction can be also recovered to increase the power produced during the discharge. Thermal energy storage can be also implemented to recover the cold air rejected by the LAES to provide cooling in buildings or data centres this increasing the total LAES efficiency. LAES4TES will focus on novel thermal energy storage design for cold applications to overcome the problem of low thermal conductivity of PCMs. The main aim will be to design a thermal energy storage able to maximize the cold and hot energy recovery from the LAES and increase the round-trip efficiency compared to the actual state of the art which nowadays is around 50%.

This project is part of the RYC2023-044196-I, funded by MCIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and FSE+