Skip to main content
To KTH's start page

Optimization of Molten Salt Electric Heaters

The aim of this research project is to optimize the design of molten salt electric heaters, documenting main challenges and solutions to address them, and thereby laying the grounds towards a subsequent heater design verification and validation on-site, botha prototype at Exheat’s lab and a MW scale heater to be tested under real operating conditions.

Funded by:

Funded by Exheat Group Ltd

 Time period:

March 2020 – March 2026

Project partners:

Background

Molten salt electric heaters can be of particular interest for active hybridization of CSP with solar PV, in a configuration where the salts are first pre-heated with oil coming from parabolic troughs and is then boosted via electric heaters to match same temperatures as those seen in CSP tower configurations. In-line electric heaters can also be used to charge the molten salts directly, without CSP, in the form of the so-called Carnot Batteries, which could particularly play an important role in reconversion of decommissioned coal plants where the steam cycle can still be operative. Despite in-line heaters have been used in other industrial applications involving different fluids, little to none is known about commercial applications in which in-line electric heaters have been specifically designed for operating with molten salts.

Aims and objectives

The aim of this research project is to optimize the design of molten salt electric heaters, documenting main challenges and solutions to address them, and thereby laying the grounds towards a subsequent heater design verification and validation on-site, botha prototype at Exheat’s lab and a MW scale heater to be tested under real operating conditions.

Publications

Publications coming out of this project will be available through Diva

Project contact persons

Dr. Rafael Guédez

Principal Investigator at KTH

Industrial PhD Candidate - Project member at KTH

R&D Manager – Exheat Group Ltd.

FRONTSH1P — Recycling of end-of-life wind blades through renewable energy driven molten salt pyrolysis process
I-UPS — Innovative High Temperature Heat Pump for Flexible Industrial Systems
FLUWS — Flexible Upcycled Waste Material based Sensible Thermal Energy Storage for CSP
STAMPE – Space Turbines Additive Manufacturing Performance Evaluation
Digital Twin for smart grid connected buildings
PED StepWise — Participatory Step-by-Step Implementation Process for Zero Carbon District Concepts in Existing Neighbourhoods
ADiSS — Aeroelastic Damping in Separated Flows
MERiT — Methane in Rocket nozzle cooling channels - conjugate heat Transfer measurements
CARE – Cavity Acoustics and Rossiter modEs
SCO2OP-TES – sCO2 Operating Pumped Thermal Energy Storage for grid/industry cooperation
POWDER2POWER (P2P) – MW-scale fluidized particle-driven CSP prototype demonstration
eLITHE – Electrification of ceramic industries high temperature heating equipment
DETECTIVE – Development of a Novel Tube-Bundle-Cavity Linear Receiver for CSP Applications
USES4HEAT – Underground Large Scale Seasonal Energy Storage for Decarbonized and Reliable Heat
ADA – Aggressive Duct Aerodynamics
VIFT — Virtual Integrated Fan and Turbine
HECTAPUS — Heating Cooling Transition and Acceleration with Phase Change Energy Utilization Storage
SUSHEAT — Smart Integration of Waste and Renewable Energy for Sustainable Heat Upgrade in the Industry
Analysis of PV system in Sweden
EVAccel — Accelerating the Integration of Electric Vehicles in a Smart and Robust Electricity Infrastructure
Towards Sustainable Energy Communities: A Case Study of Two Swedish Pilot Projects
HYBRIDplus – Advanced HYBRID solar plant with PCM storage solutions in sCO2 cycles
SHARP-SCO2 – Solar Hybrid Air-sCO2 Power Plants
RIHOND – Renewable Industrial Heat On Demand
A turnkey solution for Swedish buildings through integrated PV electricity and energy storage (PV-ESS)
A new standard methodology for assessing the environmental impact of stationary energy storage systems (LCA-SESS)
EleFanT – Electric Fan Thruster
Circular Techno-Economic Analysis of Energy Storage– IEA Annex Co-coordination
Optimization of Molten Salt Electric Heaters
FLEXnCONFU: Flexiblize Combined Cycle Power Plants through Power To-X Solutions using Non-Conventional Fuels
SolarSCO2OL
ARIAS - Advanced Research Into Aeromechanical Solutions
PILOTS4U – A network of bioeconomy open access pilot and multipurpose demo facilities
Cavity Purge Flows inside axial turbines
Effective thermal storage systems for competitive Stirling-CSP plants
ENFLOW: Energy flow metering of natural and biogas for residential applications
H2020 Pump Heat
BRISK II – Infrastructure for Sharing Knowledge II
Improved flue gas condensate treatment in MSW incineration via membrane distillation
Integrated modelling and optimization of coupled electricity and heating networks
IntegrCiTy
Membrane distillation for advanced wastewater treatment in the semiconductor industry
Microgrid for Tezpur University
Smart and Robust Electricity Infrastructure for the Future