The EU is backing a three-year project coordinated by the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland that aims demonstrate technology to enable flexible storage of renewable energy.
The Balance project, which will receive €2.5m from the Horizon 2020 initiative, will concentrate on further developing electrochemical conversion technology known as a reversible solid oxide cell (ReSoc).
ReSoc uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gas by a high temperature electrolysis process and can be operated in reverse to produce power from the same hydrogen gas produced.
Therefore, power can be transformed into a storable gas, which can then be converted back to electricity when needed to help balance the power market.
The project also involves the Technical University of Denmark, the Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission in France, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, the University of Birmingham in the UK, TU Delft in the Netherlands, Switzerland’s EPFL and Poland’s Institute of Power Engineering.
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