Hyme Energy has inaugurated a molten hydroxide salt energy storage project in Denmark, the first such deployment in the world, it claimed.
The system has been built as part of a project called ‘Molten Salt Storage – MOSS’, located in Esbjerg, Denmark, and is the world’s first MW-scale thermal energy storage unit based on molten hydroxide salt, technology provider Hyme claimed.
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After an inauguration ceremony the facility will be put into operation to demonstrate its ability to store energy charged from renewable power, which it can then discharge as heat or steam for either industry or the electricity system. Molten hydroxide generally melts at lower temperature than other kinds of salt, with Hyme claiming it is the first technology provider to enable its use for thermal energy storage.
Hyme is not the only company deploying molten salt energy storage projects at MW-scale in Denmark, however. Kyoto Group said in August 2023 that it was undergoing testing for its 4MW/18MWh molten salt energy storage project at the Nordjylland Power Station in Aalborg.
One-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions are from industrial heat, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The project has an energy storage capacity of 1MWh with a discharge capacity of 1.2MW of steam. It has been built at a port facility owned by Semco Maritime, a construction and engineering firm.
Other companies involved in the MOSS project were industrial product firm Alfa Laval, design studio Kirt x Thomsen, Swiss engineering firm Sulzer and nuclear technology firm Seaborg. Innovation network Energy Cluster Denmark facilitated the project with financial support from Denmark’s Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program (EUDP).
See a video illustration of how the MOSS project works below, from Hyme Energy on Youtube.
The company has further plans to build a project at the GWh-scale in future as part of an aim to commercialise its solution in 2026.
Hyme Energy is also deploying a larger, 1MW/20MWh project for utility Bornholms Energi & Forsyning (BEOF) for a 2024 completion date, although no update has been provided on that since it announced it in late 2022.
