Experimental and Numerical Validations of Energy Storage By Sand in a Fluidized Bed

The Variable Energy Resource, such as wind and solar power, is developing very rapidly. However, electricity generation by Variable Energy Resource is usually unsteady and cannot match the demand consumption of electricity. Therefore, large-scale, low-cost energy storge technology is required. Energy Storage by sand in a Fluidized Bed (ESFB) is proposed by IHI to satisfy this requirement.

Electrical heaters are set in bottom of riser of circulating fluidized bed. Sand is fed from the low-temperature tank to riser, heated by heater and simultaneously lifted to the top of riser, then stored in the high-temperature tank, when electricity is exceeded. The hot sand is fed from the high-temperature tank to heat exchanger and then go to the low-temperature tank, to generate steam and then generate electricity when it is required.

ESFB has the advantage of low cost, easy to scale-up，and high flexibility towards varying electricity demand/consumption. It also has the advantage of both high energy density and high safety.

The hot experiments of 10kW and 85kW have been carried out to validate the concept of ESFB. The numerical simulations have been made for optimizations. Both the experiments and simulations show that ESFB can work well.