Cost-effective, month-long energy storage in an aluminum system
Although renewable energies can offer a clean and secure future for Europe, issues such as their intermittency mean that their possibilities are somewhat limited in some applications. Now the European Reveal project seeks to develop an alternative that uses aluminum to store energy in the form of heat for months or years at a very low cost.
This initiative is supported by the EU Horizon Europe project and the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation, which last July launched this initiative with several important objectives. From the development of technologies to produce aluminum from alumina without CO2 emissions, to the use of aluminum itself as a form of long-term storage of electricity to be used to heat homes in buildings during the winter months.about:blank
The idea would be to use surplus energy from photovoltaic, wind and hydroelectric sources to store it in the form of heat in aluminum systems. The concept is radically different from traditional methods of energy storage, such as batteries, hydrogen or synthetic fuels, and uses aluminum metal as the storage medium.
Preliminary studies have shown that it is possible to use aluminum as a storage method due to its high energy densityof 15 MWh/m3, and initial calculations also showed that storing energy in this way can be significantly cheaper than, for example, alternatives such as chemical batteries or synthetic fuels.
In addition, the discharge of the energy stored in the aluminum gives rise to reaction products. These can be converted back into aluminum, closing a sustainable loop, but where environmental impact estimates still need to be made to know whether or not it is possible to do so.
This initiative will be carried out in collaboration with the governments of Iceland, Slovenia, Norway, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Germany and Switzerland, and will take place between July 2022 and June 2026.
Source: Reveal-storage