Brenmiller and Fortlev, a Brazilian manufacturer of water tanks, pipes, and water connections, have inaugurated the bGen thermal energy storage unit at the latter’s production facility in Anápolis, Brazil. The bGen system will allow Fortlev to use renewable biomass instead of natural gas to heat the air it uses to manufacture plastic water tanks, reducing fuel costs by 75% and lowering greenhouse gas emissions by 800 metric tons a year. The system heats crushed rocks to 600° Celsius which can then store that thermal energy for minutes, hours or days, to be used later to produce heat energy in the form of steam, water or hot air to mould plastic or other industrial products. The company said it is the first thermal energy storage system powered by renewables to be put into commercial operation in South America, and the first anywhere to generate hot air for manufacturing plastic products using renewable power. Although the project with Fortlev does not appear to do so, the bGen system is designed to charge by harvesting waste heat from a factory’s chimney system using an insulated ducting system. The storage system comprises a modular rock-based design with a thermal capacity of between 1 and 1,000MWh for each unit.
MGA Thermal has been awarded AU$1.27 million (US$0.9 million) from the Federal Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to fund its pilot thermal energy storage solution. The money will help fund the creation and installation of a 500kW/5MWh storage prototype to demonstrate the generation of steam from stored thermal energy, which is expected to cost a total of AU$2.85 million. The company expects it to produce performance data and a tangible demonstration of the technology for potential customers. The company claims it has a current customer interest of 20GWh for its solution and recently unveiled the first stage of its commercial manufacturing facility in Newcastle, New South Wales. The facility will be able to produce over 1,000 of its blocks, totaling 1MWh of thermal energy storage, a day by the end of 2022. The first of those blocks will go to a partnership with Toshiba International Corporation and Graphite Energy to produce green hydrogen, funded by a AU$9.8 million grant from the Australian Government’s Modern Manufacturing Initiative. The thermal energy storage sector has gained traction in the last few months with several high-profile projects and announcements.