15. June 2022

Storing electricity with steam

MDR reports about research on the TMS-Battery in the Zittau Power Plant Laboratory.

In order to secure the power supply from renewable resources such as photovoltaics or wind energy in the future, it is important to be able to provide electrical power even when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to use new types of electricity storage systems, which are able to quickly store surplus electricity at times and to provide the required electrical energy quickly and flexibly at a later point in time. The idea for such a flexible electricity storage system has been developed by researchers at the HSZG over the past 3 years and has been transformed into a concept for implementation. The result is the TMS-Battery. This is currently being constructed and researched in the Zittau Power Plant Laboratory.

The special feature of the TMS battery: The electricity is stored with steam! The TMS-Battery is a thermo-mechanical electricity storage system (CARNOT battery) for sector coupling of electricity and heat. Its core is a multi-cylinder piston machine that can operate both as a heat pump (compressor) and as a heat engine (expander). This allows electricity to be stored in steam, and also converted back to electricity.

MDR Wissen reports

The TMS-Battery, its development as well as the associated research activities also interested the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk. MDR-Wissen published two reports on 27.05.2022 about our currently running research project on the Thermo-Mechanical Power Storage (TMS-Battery) in the Zittau power plant laboratory.

More information about the project can be found on the project website.

Thomas Schäfer
Your contact person
Dipl.-Ing.
Thomas Schäfer
Institut für Prozesstechnik, Prozessautomatisierung und Messtechnik
Messtechnik / Prozessautomatisierung
02763 Zittau
Theodor-Körner-Allee 8
Building Z IVc, Room C1.14
Obergeschoss
+49 3583 612-4786