Energy storage
The balancing energy market offers a particularly useful application for electric heating systems up to around 20 MW in combination with thermal energy storage.
Electric heaters can absorb surplus electrical energy in a targeted manner and feed it into large hot water storage tanks in the form of heat, as is typically used by municipal utilities and energy suppliers. If electric heating systems are used to act as a flexible load for grid stabilisation in the short term, the energy drawn from the grid can be put to good use in this way.
The electrical energy used can then be decoupled in terms of time and fed back into the heating network as usable heat according to demand. Revenues from the provision of balancing energy can make a significant contribution to economic efficiency and, under favourable conditions, amortise the investment in an electric heating system.
Electric heating systems thus combine grid stabilisation, energy storage and efficient heat supply into an integrated power-to-heat concept.
More about power-to-heat (P2H).