Multidimensional assessment of commercial-scale power-to-heat batteries for high energy flexibility

The emerging concept of Power-to-heat (P2H) batteries demonstrates significant promise among various energy storage technologies due to their excellent storage performance and economics, which store surplus electricity from the grid and discharge heat for space and water heating. The identification of the optimal P2H battery configuration remains a challenge due to the plethora of existing configurations, often resulting in the neglect of more efficient alternatives. To overcome this problem, we conducted a multidimensional assessment of different P2H batteries by an advanced P-Graph-based framework. The novel and validated framework facilitates the automatic search of all possible P2H configurations and evaluates them in terms of round-trip efficiency, energy storage density, levelized cost of storage, and storage arbitrage, thereby markedly enhancing the techno-economic performance compared to the base case. We further explored the uncertainty associated with the results to ensure the accuracy of the conclusion. Lastly, based on the assessment, we propose a method to mitigate the problem of “energy jam” in P2H battery applications and delineate a P2H battery design strategy tailored for various application scenarios. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd.