Reuter C power plant, Berlin
The Vattenfall Reuter C power plant in Berlin, where the SaltX energy storage technology is being tested. Photo: Vattenfall.
SaltX Technology is a Swedish company that developed EnerStore, a globally patented groundbreaking nano technology whereby energy can be stored in salt indefinitely to provide heating or cooling. The new tech proved to be worth its salt in lab tests, so the next step was to look at the process on a larger scale.
During the summer of 2017, SaltX, and Vattenfall initiated a collaboration to construct a large-scale energy storage based on SaltX solution with nano-coated salt (NCS). Now - one and a half year later - the plant has been installed, tested and commissioned at Vattenfall's combined heat and power plant, Reuter-C in Berlin.
The next step for the parties is to perform actual testing of the energy storage for a number of months to evaluate both technology and functionality.
"It is an important step for the company, and we look forward to productive and important discussions with potential partners and customers in the near future," says Harald Bauer, CEO of SaltX Technology.
The first of two configurations of the energy storage have a capacity of 5 MWh / 0.5MW, which is charged with electricity from the grid and discharge high-quality heat into the Berlin district heating network. The next step and configuration will be to discharge steam at a higher temperature under pressure with the same power and storage capacity.
Other partners in the project in addition to SaltX and Vattenfall are: ETIA, Energiforsk, Öresundskraft and Göteborgs energy, and the Swedish Energy Agency which participate through fundings.
The SaltX project stores energy in salt. The energy is chemically stored, by separating salt from water. It is released by simply combining them again. This technique was not viable with regular salt because, after repeated combining and separation, the salt crystals would stick together, hindering an effective reaction. The key aspect that makes SaltX's nanotechnology so groundbreaking is that the salt can be charged and discharged thousands of times without losing any of its characteristics.
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