About the project
The La-Flex project will further develop latent thermal energy storage (LTES) to make heating and cooling systems more energy flexible. Energy flexibility is the ability of the energy system to receive and deliver energy as it is produced and consumed. Fossil fuels and hydropower are flexible energy sources, because they can produce energy when there is a need for energy. Solar and wind power, on the other hand, are not flexible energy sources. As the world moves away from fossil fuels to solar and wind power, we will lose this energy flexibility, and there will be an increasing need for energy storage.
La-Flex’s main goal is to improve the monitoring and control of LTES. This is to be able to exploit flexibility, and to be able to operate in reserve markets. This will be done by developing real-time state of charge measurement and precise thermal power control, which will make LTES easier to integrate into control systems for optimal energy management.
The project is led by SINTEF Energy Research and brings together research and industry partners from Norway, Denmark and Germany, including the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), the Technical University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt (THWS), as well as Cartesian, AInergy and KLP Eiendom.
