Conceptual Design of Nuclear-Geothermal Energy Storage Systems for Variable Electricity Production

摘要

Nuclear plants have high capital costs and low operating costs that favor base-load operation. This characteristic of nuclear power has been a critical constraint that limits the portion of nuclear power plants in a grid to stay below the base load demand. A novel gigawatt-year thermal-energy storage technology was proposed to enable base load nuclear plants to produce variable electricity to meet seasonal variations in electricity demand [1]. A large volume of underground rock is heated with hot water (or steam or carbon dioxide) from a nuclear power plant during periods of low electricity demand, and the heat is extracted during times of high demand and converted to electricity using a standard geothermal plant.