PATCH: Plasma Assisted Thermo-CHemical energy storage for Carnot batteries

可再生能源发电以及交通运输（通过电动汽车）和空间供暖（通过热泵）的电气化被认为是到2050年实现净零循环经济的关键推动因素。首相的“十点计划”（2020年11月）设定了到2028年将电热泵的安装量从每年3万台增加到每年60万台的目标。然而，用可再生能源彻底取代化石燃料（对英国来说主要是天然气）将导致严重的“能力浪费”：(1)如果在没有跨季节储存的情况下安装过剩的可再生能源发电能力，高达150GW的可再生能源发电能力将在其他季节而不是冬季大部分闲置；(2)由于缺乏无碳燃料，约44GW的传统热能发电能力以及相关基础设施将被“浪费”。考虑到其比可再生能源发电高得多的负荷系数，“废”热发电能力足以满足英国冬季供暖的发电量。解决这些挑战的一个有希望的方法是所谓的“卡诺电池”技术，这是一个电网规模的系统，主要用于通过三个关键过程存储电能：将电能转化为热量，将热量储存在廉价的存储介质中，然后在需要时将热量转化为电能。“卡诺电池”被认为是一种新兴技术，通过将传统发电厂转变为电网规模的储能发电厂，可以实现廉价和不依赖于地点的电能存储。然而，目前使用该技术的研发工作采用显热储存或潜热储存，因此由于不可避免的自放电（热损失/耗散），仅适用于短期应用（例如，每日/每周的能源管理）。该项目的总体目标是通过回收金属材料废物，开发一种新颖且具有成本效益的基于金属氧化物氧化还原的热化学储热技术，从而实现对废弃可再生电力的灵活捕获，以及利用其他退役的火力发电厂及时发电。整个过程可以实现“卡诺电池”的概念，它可以为电网提供短期平衡和长期跨季节服务。

Renewable energy generation as well as the electrification of both transportation (via electric vehicles) and space heating (via heat pumps) are regarded as the key enablers to achieve a net-zero circular economy by 2050. The Prime Minister's Ten Point Plan (November 2020) has set an ambition to grow the installation of electric heat pumps from 30,000 per year to 600,000 per year by 2028. However, the radical and complete replacement of fossil fuels (mainly natural gas for the UK) with renewable for heating will lead to significant 'capability wastes': (1) up to 150GW renewable electricity generation capacity will be mostly idle in other seasons rather than winter if superabundant renewable generation capacity was installation without inter-seasonal storage; (2) about 44GW conventional heat-to-power electricity generation capacity as well as the related infrastructure would be 'wasted' due to lack of carbon-free fuels. The 'waste' heat-to-power generation capacity is sufficient to meet the UK's electricity generation for heating in winters, considering their much higher load factor than renewable generation. One promising approach to tackle these challenges is the so-called 'Carnot Battery' technology, which is a grid-scale system primarily used to store electric energy with three key processes: transforming electricity into heat, storing the heat in inexpensive storage media, and then transforming the heat back to electricity when required. The 'Carnot Battery' is regarded as an emerging technology for the inexpensive and site-independent storage of electrical energy by turning the conventional power plants into grid-scale energy storage plants. However, current R&D efforts using this technology adopt either sensible thermal storage or latent heat storage and therefore are only suitable for short duration applications (e.g., daily/weekly energy management) due to unavoidable self-discharge (heat loss/dissipation).The overall aim of this project is to develop a novel and cost-effective metal oxides redox based thermochemical heat storage technology through the recovery of metallic material wastes, which enables the flexible capture of waste renewable electricity, as well as the timely power generation using otherwise retired thermal power plants. The whole process can realise the concept of 'Carnot Batteries' which could provide both short-term balancing and long-term inter-seasonal services to the grid.