South Australian company CCT Energy Storage has unveiled the Thermal Energy Device (TED), the “world’s first” working thermal battery.
According to CCT Energy Storage, “the battery accepts any form of electrical input to convert and store energy as latent heat—making it versatile, affordable, and long lasting.”
Heating and melting a phase change material allows TED to accept electrical energy and store it as thermal energy. Compared to a lead acid battery, TED stores energy at 12 times the density. When electricity is needed, a thermal generator is used for extraction.
“TED is the first battery of its kind and will be a game changer in the renewables space, with the ability to significantly reduce power costs while providing versatile and long-lasting energy with little to no environmental effect,” CCT Chief Executive Serge Bondarenko says.
Bondarenko also highlights the battery’s scalability, which strengthens its accessibility to a variety of applications.
“TED’s scalability means it can be used in small scale 5 kW applications to large scale applications of hundreds of megawatts of instantaneous power,” says Bondarenko.“And unlike some renewable energy sources, TED can manage input variations, produce base load output and charge and discharge simultaneously—minimizing energy wastage and making it applicable to numerous commercial industries.”
In total, 10 TED units will make their way to commercial customers in 2019. The company hopes to ramp up that figure to 200 units by next year.
