Firebrick systems powered by renewable energy could be used for up to 90% of industrial process heat applications, the Stanford study says. Meeting that demand in the U.S. would require firebrick system capacity of 2.6 TWh, with a peak discharge rate of 170 GW.
They’re not converting it back into electricity, this is for industrial process heat. They have 100 units of electrical energy and 98 units go into whatever the industry needs to heat.
Lots of industries use ovens, kilns or furnaces. Mostly fueled by gas at the moment. Using electricity would be very expensive unless they can timeshift usage and get low spot prices. Since they need heat anyway, thermal storage is pretty cheap and efficient.
Oh, my bad. That makes perfect sense and I have no objections for purely thermal storage.
It said steam to customer, my brain filled that in with turbine.