New heating system could double EU’s energy storage

A new electric heating storage system could help double the amount of energy stored across Europe by 2050. A report looking at the potential impact of the smart electrical thermal […]

A new electric heating storage system could help double the amount of energy stored across Europe by 2050.

A report looking at the potential impact of the smart electrical thermal storage (SETS) technology (pictured) claims switching to it could provide an additional 54GW of storage capacity in the next four decades.

Energy consultancy KEMA, which published the report commissioned by supplier SSE and appliance manufacturer Dimplex also found it could cut heating costs for customers as it offers efficiency savings of up to 20%.

The SETS technology allows excess renewable electricity to be stored in homes in the form of heat at times when output is high, which they can use to control room or water temperature when needed.

Ian Marchant, Chief Executive of SSE said: “No matter what the energy supply mix looks like in the future, it is clear that there will be more renewables on the system, which means it will be crucial to find new ways to balance the variability of supply in a smarter electricity grid. This report shows that smart electric thermal storage has huge potential to help in this area, as well as saving people money and giving them much better control over their heating.”

The report found if the EU replaced all of the current installed night storage heaters, it could help save up to 7.4TWh of electricity and 3 mega-tons of carbon emissions every year. This could be increased to 148GW if all electrically heated homes also switched to SETS. In the UK, it has the potential to create 13GW of storage capacity by 2050, equivalent to 12% of the country’s total installed capacity.

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