Speaker: Dr Daniel Friedrich

Title: Thermal Energy Storage systems for seasonal variations in heat demand

Abstract:

Balancing the seasonal variation in demand is one of the largest challenges in the decarbonisation of the energy system. For example, in the UK the natural gas demand increases from around 1.5 TWh per day in summer to more than 3.0 TWh per day in winter. This variation is to a large extent due to the increased heating demand and here specifically due to the domestic heating demand. Currently the demand fluctuations can be balanced due to the dispatchable nature of fossil fuel based electricity and heat generation. However, with the increase of non-dispatchable renewables in the energy mix, different solutions are needed. One solution to balance the seasonal variation is seasonal energy storage. However, the required storage capacity for the UK would be more than 100 TWh. Several options ranging from thermal aquifer storage to power-to-fuel systems with liquid fuel storage have been proposed. Here an overview of the different approaches, including the opportunities and challenges, is presented. While most of these methods have been successfully deployed, they are rather expensive and/or suffer from low efficiencies. A second option is a tighter integration of the electricity and heating systems and the utilisation of seasonal variations in renewable energy generation with short to medium term storage.

Bio:

Daniel Friedrich received a Diploma in Technomathematik from Universität Karlsruhe (TH), Germany, in 2005. In the same year, he joined the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton, where he obtained his PhD in 2010. In 2009 he joined the School of Engineering, at the University of Edinburgh, to continue his research activity as a post-doctoral researcher and, in March 2013, he was appointed as a Chancellor’s Fellow in Mathematics for Engineering Applications. Daniel has been working extensively on the mathematical modelling and optimisation of engineering systems with particular focus on microfluidic systems, adsorption based gas separation and thermal energy systems. His current research interests are in the efficient numerical simulation and optimisation for low carbon technologies, in particular Carbon Capture and Storage and Thermal Energy Storage.

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• Dr Daniel Friedrich