Many manufacturing processes require heat to sustain them. Most factories still derive this heat from electricity, which they purchase from utilities. Many factories work 24 / 7 to avoid requiring additional energy to reheat their equipment. Thermal batteries keep production rolling on after dark, when renewable energy is not available, and utilities demand peak rates.
Thermal Batteries And Firebricks Store Heat
When we camped out as kids we slept close to our campfires, even after the flames had died away. We knew the smooth round stones did more than prevent the ashes blowing away. Those stones also stayed warm, although we never thought to call them thermal batteries back then.
Refractory bricks lining kilns, still bake raw clay until we can use it in construction. Although those kilns are no longer high quality clay ovens. Nowadays, advanced thermal batteries keep production rolling in furnaces, kilns, and fireboxes, according to Wikipedia.
Batteries Time-Shifting Production Heat
We can justifiably call these batteries, because they store heat, and heat is a form of energy we can tap into. We came across a most interesting report by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that we link to below. There, the authors ponder over using thermal batteries to combat climate change.
The authors propose a revolutionary model to keep furnaces hot 24 / 7, using renewable energy after dark:
- Store renewable energy in daytime using zinc-carbon batteries.
- Use this energy to create high heat kept in insulated storage.
- Release this thermal energy for high-heat manufacturing later.
How Thermal Batteries Could Keep Production Rolling
The report concludes, “this firebrick resistance-heated energy storage is capable of storing zero-carbon electricity as high-temperature heat. And delivering it to industrial plants, or power plants, as needed in place of fossil fuels”.
More Information
Thermal Batteries And Energy Storage Today
Thermal Heat Batteries Could Be the Next Step
