Building Carnot Batteries is all about innovatively storing electricity as heat, paving the way for a more efficient and sustainable energy future. In this episode, Clemens, Matías, and Eike dive into the central component of the Carnot battery: the thermal energy storage system. They investigate different approaches for storing thermal energy and break down the engineering challenges that come with each method.

Along the way, they explain why storing heat might sound simple in theory, but in practice, it’s a complex balancing act of materials science, heat transfer, and system design. If you’ve ever wondered what makes thermal energy storage such a critical (and tricky!) part of Carnot battery technology, this is the episode for you!

More about the projects:

• Clemens Naumann, TU Ilmenau, project: Parasitic heat transport in thermal energy storage for Carnot batteries, PI: Christian Cierpka. https://www.uni-due.de/spp2403/en/storages.php
• Matías Pezo, DLR Stuttgart, project: MultiPCM – Multi-Scale Simulation of Latent Heat Storage for the inverse design of Carnot Batteries, PI: André Thess, Annelies Vandersickel. https://www.uni-due.de/spp2403/en/storages.php
• Eike Schmidt, KIT, project: Heat transfer in packed bed thermal energy storage with low Prandtl number fluid, PI: Klarissa Niedermeier. https://www.uni-due.de/spp2403/en/storages.php