Could electric storage boilers beat batteries on cost as industrial users seek savings?

A new type of solid-state electric storage boiler could store solar energy more cheaply and safely that batteries, and unlock increased on-site generation

Combining solar generation with heat storage will be the optimal combination for many users Ideally suited to the food and distilling sectors, Caldera has secured £295,000 from BEIS to design a factory to mass produce its technology.

The patented technology, developed by British start-up Caldera, uses a solid material which is heated up using off-peak electricity and on-site renewables This energy is then stored with very high efficiency and released when required as highpressure steam

It is ideally suited to industrial users who rely on process heat or steam

The Hampshire firm is already producing a domestic scale heat store, which is currently being rolled out in a number of trial homes countrywide

Earlier this year Caldera secured a

£295,000 grant from the Department of Business Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) via their Industrial Fuel Switching competition to investigate the design and build of a UK factory capable of rolling out Caldera storage boilers at scale The company is now engaging with a number of businesses in different sectors Europe-wide to optimise the design for a range of industrial users

Caldera CEO James Macnaghten, says: “For industrial users who have processes which use heat, we believe it will be more cost-effective to store excess on-site generation as heat

“Lithium-Ion batteries are a tremendous technology, but they are expensive, and bring associated downside risks including fire And for many industrial users, it is heat they need, not electricity

“It therefore makes more sense to store excess solar energy directly as heat, using a technology which replicates (and in many cases can replace) existing gas or oil-fired boilers

“With our technology, banks of solidstate electric storage boilers can be charged by on-site solar PV at around 99 percent efficiency, and can hold this heat for hours, ready to deliver high pressure steam as required at temperatures up to 200°C.”

“It is a simple, modular system which costs significantly less than batteries We believe that combining on-site solar generation with heat storage will be the optimal combination for many industrial users,” Macnaghten concludes

For further information: www.caldera.co.uk