2023, Taiwan Cement Group officially launched the world's first "cement energy storage system".
This system uses ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) to build cabinets, and has obtained relevant patents in major markets such as the European Union, the United States and Japan.
In order to meet the European market demand, Taiwan Cement has added a new cement energy storage system production line in Jurong, Jiangsu Province, to customize the production of products sold to Europe. Today, products from Jurong have been put into operation in Rome, Italy. Is it really cement that
stores electricity?
Many people tend to understand "cement energy storage system" as electricity stored in cement. In fact, the electricity is still stored in the battery, and the "cement" refers to the safety cabinet built by UHPC.
But it's not just a concrete shell, either. This system takes the UHPC cabinet with high strength and high temperature resistance as the safety carrier, and integrates the battery module, battery management, temperature control, fire extinguishing and related control equipment into the cabinet to form a complete energy storage system that can operate independently.
Why UHPC is used to build cabinets
? At present, most of the energy storage cabinets on the market are made of steel. Steel structure has high strength, but the heat conduction speed is also fast. Once thermal runaway occurs in lithium batteries in the cabinet, the temperature may rise rapidly and conduct to the surroundings. How to limit the high temperature and fire inside the cabinet is an important issue in the safety design of energy storage system. The research and development team of
Taiwan Cement has put forward a different idea: to use the cement and concrete material technology accumulated over a long period of time to create a more reliable safety barrier for the energy storage system.
UHPC is not the normal concrete used in general construction. Through special material formulation and manufacturing process, UHPC has the characteristics of high strength, high temperature resistance and high durability, and its compressive strength can reach 1.5 times that of Taipei 101 Building. The exterior wall of the Louvre in Abu Dhabi and the curtain wall of the northern courtyard of the Palace Museum are all made of this material.
According to the test, the UHPC cabinet can maintain fire resistance for two hours in a heating environment of about 1000 degrees Celsius, so as to gain time to control the danger and reduce the risk of fire spreading outward.
From early warning to water injection, the three safety lines of defense
are not enough to rely solely on cabinet materials in the face of thermal runaway of lithium batteries. The TCC cement energy storage system has a three-stage protection mechanism.
The first line of defense is early warning. The system continuously monitors the status of the cabinet, and once the temperature, gas and other data are abnormal, it will give an alarm in time to complete the disposal in the early stage of the risk.
The second line of defense is automatic fire extinguishing. When the risk is further increased, the fire extinguishing device will automatically start and spray the fire extinguishing agent to inhibit the development of thermal runaway.
The third line of defense is independent water injection. When the first two channels still fail to control the danger, the water injection system starts to fill the energy storage cabinet with water in about 10 minutes and immerse the battery module.
The cabinet also adopts directional pressure relief design. If combustible gas is accumulated inside, the pressure will be released along the preset direction, which reduces the risk of the cabinet bursting as a whole and affecting the surrounding personnel and equipment. This system has passed the test under the witness of T TÜV Rhine in Germany, confirmed that the effect of water injection fire extinguishing is excellent, and obtained UL 9540 energy storage system safety certification.
Why is Jiangsu Jurong
Jiangsu Jurong Factory originally low-carbon cement as its core business, through the use of alternative raw materials such as washed fly ash, continue to explore the low-carbon transformation of cement production. The Gongliang Building in Hangzhou, the headquarters of Taiwan Cement's mainland operations, uses cement from the Jurong plant.
Today, a specialized production line for the new energy industry has also landed here, thus extending the long-term accumulation of material technology, structural design and manufacturing technology to the field of new energy equipment. From technology research and development, production line construction to mass production and delivery, Taiwan Cement has a complete set of independent intellectual property rights and complete manufacturing capabilities.
Why go to Europe
first? The European Union continues to promote the construction of charging infrastructure, and the demand for fast charging and ultra-fast charging is growing. However, in some parts of Europe, the power grid was built earlier, and the cost of expansion and upgrading is high and the cycle is long-the electricity consumption of an ultra-fast charging pile running at full load for more than ten minutes is equivalent to the peak load of a whole office building. The solution given by
Taiwan Cement Corporation is "integration of charging and storage": power storage during off-peak hours and discharge during peak hours. The energy storage system is like a "reservoir" between the power grid and the fast charging station, which can support the demand for ultra-fast charging without large-scale transformation of the power grid.
From Jurong production line to European cities
, TCC cement energy storage system has been put into operation in Rome, Italy. In France, Taiwan Cement has cooperated with local retail group COOP Atlantique, and the fast charging facilities combined with cement energy storage system are gradually entering its Hyper U, Super U and other large commercial stores.
For commercial stores, charging stations not only serve the users of new energy vehicles, but also can be combined with the original power consumption system of the stores to alleviate the pressure of power consumption during peak hours through off-peak charging and discharging.
For an enterprise that has been deeply engaged in the cement industry for 80 years, this cross-border has not left the industry-years of understanding of materials and high temperature, and eventually condensed into the core security capability of the cement energy storage system, quietly guarding the city.
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