IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v18y2025i17p4461-d1730046.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Multiscale Evaluation of an Electrically Heated Thermal Battery for High-Temperature Industrial Energy Storage

Author

Listed:
  • Munevver Elif Asar

    (Electrified Thermal Solutions, Inc., Medford, MA 02155, USA)

  • Daniel McKinley

    (Electrified Thermal Solutions, Inc., Medford, MA 02155, USA)

  • Bao Truong

    (Electrified Thermal Solutions, Inc., Medford, MA 02155, USA)

  • Joey Kabel

    (Electrified Thermal Solutions, Inc., Medford, MA 02155, USA)

  • Daniel Stack

    (Electrified Thermal Solutions, Inc., Medford, MA 02155, USA)

Abstract

Industrial processes such as cement, steel, and glass manufacturing rely heavily on fossil fuels for high-temperature heat, presenting a significant challenge for decarbonization. To enable continuous thermal output from intermittent renewable electricity, Electrified Thermal Solutions, Inc. is developing the Joule Hive™ Thermal Battery (JHTB), an electrically heated energy storage system capable of delivering process heat up to 1800 °C. The system employs electrically conductive firebricks (E-Bricks) as both heating elements and thermal storage media, arranged with insulating bricks (I-Bricks) to facilitate gas flow and heat exchange. The work combines experimental and numerical studies to evaluate the thermal, electrical, and structural performance of the JHTB. A small-scale charging experiment was conducted on a single E-Brick circuit in a 1500 °C furnace, showing good agreement with coupled thermal-electric finite element models that account for Joule heating, temperature-dependent properties, radiation, and natural convection. Structural modeling assessed stress induced by thermal gradients. In addition, a high-fidelity conjugate heat transfer model of the full JHTB core was developed to assess system-scale discharge performance, solving conservation equations with SST k-ω turbulence and radiation models. Simulations for two air channel geometries demonstrated the battery’s ability to deliver 5 MW of heat for at least five hours with air temperatures higher than 1000 °C, validating its potential for industrial decarbonization.

Suggested Citation

  • Munevver Elif Asar & Daniel McKinley & Bao Truong & Joey Kabel & Daniel Stack, 2025. "Multiscale Evaluation of an Electrically Heated Thermal Battery for High-Temperature Industrial Energy Storage," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(17), pages 1-22, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:18:y:2025:i:17:p:4461-:d:1730046
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/17/4461/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/17/4461/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stack, Daniel C. & Curtis, Daniel & Forsberg, Charles, 2019. "Performance of firebrick resistance-heated energy storage for industrial heat applications and round-trip electricity storage," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 242(C), pages 782-796.
    2. Sardeshpande, Vishal & Anthony, Renil & Gaitonde, U.N. & Banerjee, Rangan, 2011. "Performance analysis for glass furnace regenerator," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(12), pages 4451-4458.
    3. Gil, Antoni & Medrano, Marc & Martorell, Ingrid & Lázaro, Ana & Dolado, Pablo & Zalba, Belén & Cabeza, Luisa F., 2010. "State of the art on high temperature thermal energy storage for power generation. Part 1--Concepts, materials and modellization," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 31-55, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stack, Daniel C. & Curtis, Daniel & Forsberg, Charles, 2019. "Performance of firebrick resistance-heated energy storage for industrial heat applications and round-trip electricity storage," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 242(C), pages 782-796.
    2. Gil, Antoni & Barreneche, Camila & Moreno, Pere & Solé, Cristian & Inés Fernández, A. & Cabeza, Luisa F., 2013. "Thermal behaviour of d-mannitol when used as PCM: Comparison of results obtained by DSC and in a thermal energy storage unit at pilot plant scale," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 1107-1113.
    3. Lazaros Aresti & Paul Christodoulides & Gregoris P. Panayiotou & Georgios Florides, 2020. "The Potential of Utilizing Buildings’ Foundations as Thermal Energy Storage (TES) Units from Solar Plate Collectors," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-14, May.
    4. Fukahori, Ryo & Nomura, Takahiro & Zhu, Chunyu & Sheng, Nan & Okinaka, Noriyuki & Akiyama, Tomohiro, 2016. "Macro-encapsulation of metallic phase change material using cylindrical-type ceramic containers for high-temperature thermal energy storage," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 324-328.
    5. Bruch, A. & Molina, S. & Esence, T. & Fourmigué, J.F. & Couturier, R., 2017. "Experimental investigation of cycling behaviour of pilot-scale thermal oil packed-bed thermal storage system," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 277-285.
    6. Zeng, Kuo & Gao, Junjie & Lu, Yongwen & Zuo, Hongyang & Chi, Bowen & Fang, Zheyu & Li, Jun & Xu, Huaqian & Li, Beiyang & Yang, Haiping & Chen, Hanping, 2024. "Comprehensive enhancement of melting-solidifying process in latent heat storage based on eccentric fin-foam combination," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    7. Usaola, Julio, 2012. "Participation of CSP plants in the reserve markets: A new challenge for regulators," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 562-571.
    8. Rao, A. Gangoli & van den Oudenalder, F.S.C. & Klein, S.A., 2019. "Natural gas displacement by wind curtailment utilization in combined-cycle power plants," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 477-491.
    9. Alva, Guruprasad & Lin, Yaxue & Fang, Guiyin, 2018. "An overview of thermal energy storage systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 341-378.
    10. Bravo, Ruben & Ortiz, Carlos & Chacartegui, Ricardo & Friedrich, Daniel, 2021. "Multi-objective optimisation and guidelines for the design of dispatchable hybrid solar power plants with thermochemical energy storage," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(PB).
    11. Mahdi, Jasim M. & Mohammed, Hayder I. & Hashim, Emad T. & Talebizadehsardari, Pouyan & Nsofor, Emmanuel C., 2020. "Solidification enhancement with multiple PCMs, cascaded metal foam and nanoparticles in the shell-and-tube energy storage system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 257(C).
    12. Zhao, Yongliang & Song, Jian & Liu, Ming & Zhao, Yao & Olympios, Andreas V. & Sapin, Paul & Yan, Junjie & Markides, Christos N., 2022. "Thermo-economic assessments of pumped-thermal electricity storage systems employing sensible heat storage materials," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 431-456.
    13. Mostafavi Tehrani, S. Saeed & Shoraka, Yashar & Nithyanandam, Karthik & Taylor, Robert A., 2019. "Shell-and-tube or packed bed thermal energy storage systems integrated with a concentrated solar power: A techno-economic comparison of sensible and latent heat systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 238(C), pages 887-910.
    14. Miró, Laia & Oró, Eduard & Boer, Dieter & Cabeza, Luisa F., 2015. "Embodied energy in thermal energy storage (TES) systems for high temperature applications," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 793-799.
    15. Nahin Tasmin & Shahjadi Hisan Farjana & Md Rashed Hossain & Santu Golder & M. A. Parvez Mahmud, 2022. "Integration of Solar Process Heat in Industries: A Review," Clean Technol., MDPI, vol. 4(1), pages 1-35, February.
    16. Fernández, Angel G. & Gomez-Vidal, Judith & Oró, Eduard & Kruizenga, Alan & Solé, Aran & Cabeza, Luisa F., 2019. "Mainstreaming commercial CSP systems: A technology review," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 152-176.
    17. Li, Han & Li, Jinchao & Kong, Xiangfei & Long, Hao & Yang, Hua & Yao, Chengqiang, 2020. "A novel solar thermal system combining with active phase-change material heat storage wall (STS-APHSW): Dynamic model, validation and thermal performance," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    18. Fazlollahi, Samira & Schüler, Nils & Maréchal, François, 2015. "A solid thermal storage model for the optimization of buildings operation strategy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 209-222.
    19. Arteconi, A. & Hewitt, N.J. & Polonara, F., 2012. "State of the art of thermal storage for demand-side management," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 371-389.
    20. Adrián Caraballo & Santos Galán-Casado & Ángel Caballero & Sara Serena, 2021. "Molten Salts for Sensible Thermal Energy Storage: A Review and an Energy Performance Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-15, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:18:y:2025:i:17:p:4461-:d:1730046. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.