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Product Overview
Overview
Echogen is developing a pumped thermal energy storage (PTES) system for long duration energy storage (LDES) applications. The company's primary business is in waste heat utilization, offering a CO2-based waste heat recovery system, and has received over $10 million across mulitple grants from the DOE to support energy storage technology development.
Echogen's technology delivers long duration energy storage at at cost lower than the competition. Echogen's system does not rely upon a foreign supply chain, is friendly to the environment, and has greater reliability than electrochemical solutions. It operates at less extreme temperatures than other thermal storage solutions, allowing it to use lower cost materials and more common hardware.
PTES consists of two systems joined. A heat pump and a heat engine form the PTES system, sharing common high temperature (sand or concrete) and low temperature (ice) reservoirs. It uses electricity from the grid to store energy as heat. When there is a demand for electricity, the heat engine converts the stored thermal energy to electricity.
Echogen's PTES is sized as small as 25MW. Energy storage durations range from 8 to 100+ hours, with a low incremental cost of storage. The system can be placed anywhere, having no specific geological constraints like other LDES technologies.
Business Model
Echogen is a system supplier through OEM partnerships.
Technology Innovations
- Supercritical CO2 cycle uses supercritical CO2 as a working fluid that yields greater power output at lower costs than standard steam systems
- Thermal storage low cost storage media using both sand and ice to store heat and create a temperature differential for efficient operation
Applications
- Renewable energy shifting store energy generated from renewable systems at times of excess supply for use during times of peak demand, on the order of days
- Grid balancing use thermal storage as an additional load or generator on the grid to balance supply and demand and turbines can provide inertia Safe and Environmentally Friendly The system is inherently safe with no risk for fire and is easily recyclable at end of life, solving the issues present with Li-ion