For the last few decades, there has been a transition towards renewable energy resources to cope with global warming, environmental issues and fuel shortage. However, inherent intermittency of renewable energy resources is the major bottleneck. Energy storage technologies are considered as the most critical component of the current energy supply chain especially for renewable energy utilization. The efficiency and dispatchability of power generation from renewable energy sources can be increased using energy storage (ES) technologies. Specifically, thermal energy storage (TES) can be deployed to bridge the mismatch between solar energy supply and demand. There are broadly three different methods to store and retrieve thermal energy in a medium such as Sensible heat storage, Latent heat storage and Thermochemical heat storage. Latent heat storage at high-temperature (HTLHS) using a phase change medium (PCM) can provide significant energy storage density and high exergetic efficiency. HTLHS can be integrated with a concentrated solar power plant (CSP) or can act as a standalone system to generate power and heat.

However, there are several techno-economic challenges to be overcome before wide scale implementation of TES for renewable energy applications. The technical issues include thermo-hydraulic analysis, high-temperature effect on the efficiency, optimization of geometric and operating parameters and smooth integration of TES of different storage systems. The economic challenges would include economic viability of investments, the estimation of a new cost structure, the forecast of the diffusion and demand for new energy technology, the pricing strategy for new types of energy service, the challenge of understanding the market equilibrium under new technological energy systems, etc. Hence, it is essential to investigate and understand the techno-economic features of the different thermal energy storage systems and compare them with conventional storage systems for their successful implementation in the renewable energy market. In this context, theoretical and empirical and numerical studies are required to be performed for techno-economic problems related to energy storage systems, with the anticipation that these studies will provide new insights into the potentiality of thermal storage systems.

(1) Thermo-hydraulic analysis of TES systems using experimental/numerical/theoretical study

(2) Optimization of critical performance parameters to maximize efficiency of TES systems

(3) Application of ML and AI to analyze TES systems

(4) Economic feasibility analysis of investment for TES technology

(5) Comparison of different TES systems from the economic perspective

(6) Techno-economic comparison of TES with other storage technologies

(7) Feasibility of High-temperature latent storage systems for renewable energy applications

(8) Thermal and hydraulic analysis of different renewable energy systems