New Tool Alert: Compare Thermal Storage Vs Fuel Boilers
Our friends at Aratherm and the Australian Alliance for Energy Productivity have recently launched a Heat Battery Estimator. This online tool allows Australian manufacturers to explore the benefits of electrifying process heating using thermal energy storage to reduce energy costs and emissions.
The tool models a hybrid gas / electric system, allowing you to quickly gauge the trade-off between energy cost and the level of decarbonisation. Higher gas displacement results in a higher cost of electric heat. You can also easily customise the input variables to better reflect your facility including your state, heat load profile, gas price and network tariff.
Key takeaways:
Adding thermal storage will displace more gas and often lowers the cost of heat.
Thermal storage is already cheaper than natural gas for over 75% gas displacement in most states, and in NSW and VIC thermal storage can achieve 100% gas displacement at a lower cost of delivered heat.
Electric boilers struggle to be competitive beyond 50% gas displacement, and do not provide a viable pathway to net zero.
New trial tariffs offered by leading networks will help to greatly reduce overall energy costs.
This estimator is a great starting point, but there may be further upside for your site revealed through site specific analysis.
The snapshot above is a sample output from the Heat Battery Estimator. It shows that in NSW for a flat load heat profile, heat batteries achieve price parity with natural gas boilers ($16/GJ, 80% efficiency) under a 100% electric scenario. In comparison, e-boilers can only achieve 35% displacement of natural gas for the equivalent cost of heat delivered.
If you want to understand how electric heat batteries stack up for your site, then we can tailor a detailed business case for your specific site requirements.
