Firebrick Heat Storage for Industry Could Get $75 Million in Federal Funding – pv magazine USA

September 17, 2024 William Driscoll

The U.S. Department of Energy is negotiating with alcoholic beverage maker Diageo North America for up to $75 million to install firebrick heat storage systems at two Diageo sites. The systems will be supplied by Rondo Energy and will be powered at least in part by renewable energy, a Diageo spokesman said.

Firebricks can be heated to high temperatures using electricity. The stored heat can be used to produce hot air for some industrial processes, or to produce steam for other industrial processes, or to generate electricity for on-site use.

Rondo Energy said its “heat accumulators” will produce both heat and electricity at Diageo’s plants in Shelbyville, Kentucky, and Plainfield, Illinois, and will begin operating in 2026 and 2028, respectively. The heat storage systems will replace heat fired with natural gas.

A Diageo spokesman said the energy needed for the project would come from local solar energy sources and renewable energy from the grid, supported by renewable energy certificates.

DOE’s Clean Energy Demonstration Office announced the start of grant negotiations in March, saying the projects would provide a “highly replicable blueprint” for how manufacturing plants could integrate thermal batteries with intermittent renewable energy to achieve direct decarbonization. At the time, DOE said the projects would be powered by on-site renewable energy sources.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will assist Diageo with techno-economic and life-cycle analyses, Diageo said, and will also confirm carbon reductions for both projects.

DOE said Diageo has committed to making air and water quality monitoring results from its facilities publicly available to inform local communities about reductions in air pollutant concentrations once projects are operational.

Rondo Energy offers two sizes of thermal batteries, according to its specification sheet. The larger system has an energy storage capacity of 300 MWh, a peak charge rate of 70 MW-ac, a maximum discharge rate of 20 MW-thermal and minimal heat loss over a one-day storage period. The smaller system is about one-third the size of the larger system.

Rondo Energy describes its first project, a 2 MWh system supplying industrial heat to Calgren Renewable Fuels in California, as the first commercially operating thermal energy storage system and the “highest temperature, highest efficiency” commercial energy storage system in the world.

DOE previously awarded $4 million in funding for a pilot project to store heated sand energy at an NREL facility.

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