Performance Analysis of Coal-Fired Power Unit for Flexibility Generation Integrating with Thermal Energy Storage System

Abstract This paper proposes a new scheme for integrating heat storage into conventional thermal power plants, whose functional orientation is to transform traditional thermal power units into deep peaking power sources by adding an additional cycle to the heat storage system. The theme is related to energy and power engineering, as well as energy storage. A power plant model was established using Ebsilon. Based on different steam and water parameters of the additional cycle, the paper assessed the technical feasibility of transforming a 330 MW conventional thermal power unit into a peaking power unit by integrating the additional heat storage cycle, and carried out a preliminary evaluation of the unit’s operation under conventional off-design conditions. Results show that under the set parameters, the load range of the 330 MW unit has been expanded to 49 MW~349 MW, the maximum conversion efficiency of the additional cycle reaches 50.76%.