IEA ECES Task 36: Carnot batteries - Technology and perspectives

IEA ECES (Energy Conservation Through Energy Storages) is the Technology Platform for activities related to energy storage technologies within the IEA. Denmark has been an active member since 2013.
The focus of the upcoming IEA-ECES Annex will be on the Carnot Battery technology, which can be considered an electrical energy storage (EES) technology.
In the Carnot Battery concept, electricity is converted into heat, which is stored in a suitable medium (e.g., rocks, molten salt or water). This heat is later used to run a power cycle, so producing electricity as per requirement. Compared to other EES technologies, the Carnot Battery concept can be a flexible, energy efficient, site-independent, economically competitive and an environmentally friendly alternative.
Although the Carnot Battery principle has been around for a few years now, there is no structured platform where experts in this field can get in contact with one another and exchange knowledge. Therefore, the first goal of the annex is to establish such a platform, so that members of the academic world, research institutions and industry can come together, sharing their experiences, coordinating their work and paving the way for further development and for the deployment of this technology.
The Carnot Battery technology is very relevant for the future energy system in Denmark, due to geographical conditions, which do not favor pumped-hydro and compressed air energy storage.
The Danish contributions to the IEA ECES Annex mainly consist of assessment of components and technology for possible application in Carnot batteries and energy system analysis of different Carnot battery concepts on local system scale and on a national energy system scale to assess the potentials and perspectives of future implementation of Carnot batteries.
The operating agent of the upcoming annex is Dr.-Ing. Dan Bauer, Institute of Engineering Thermodynamics of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Provided that funding is obtained from the respective national funding bodies, the following countries are expected to participate in the Annex: Germany, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, United States of America and Denmark.