Carnot Batteries and the Decarbonization of Coal Fired Power Plants

Synopsis: The cost-efficient storage of electricity at the scale of gigawatt hours is a grand challenge of energy research. In the first part of the presentation an emerging technology – Carnot-Batteries – for electricity storage are introduced. A Carnot-Battery transforms electricity into heat, stores the heat using abundant and inexpensive storage materials like molten salts or natural stones and converts the heat back to electricity using steam or gas turbines.