Why does the energy storage require liquid cooling systems
With technological progress and capacity expansion, the global development of "new energy+energy storage" has entered a fast lane in recent years. After preliminary exploration and practice, the positioning and business model of energy storage in the power system have become increasingly clear, and the conditions for the large-scale development of the energy storage industry have become more mature. At a critical juncture in the accelerated development of the energy storage market, safety issues have become a key issue of common concern in the industry, and the importance of energy storage temperature control continues to increase.
At present, containerized energy storage is the mainstream form of lithium battery energy storage. With the expansion of the overall scale of the project, in addition to deploying more energy storage containers, improving the individual capacity and energy density of containers is also an inevitable trend in industry development. With the increase in the scale and energy density of energy storage containers, the heat generated during system operation will also significantly increase. Therefore, in order to ensure that the temperature inside the container and the temperature difference between battery packs are at a reasonable level, the importance of liquid cooling temperature control systems will be further highlighted.
For power type energy storage systems, the increase in battery charging and discharging rates will also place higher demands on temperature control capabilities. Compared to energy based energy storage systems, power based energy storage systems such as frequency modulation have relatively smaller individual scales, but they often require frequent rapid charging and discharging during operation. According to relevant research, the higher the discharge rate of lithium batteries, the more heat will be generated during operation. Therefore, as the utilization rate of power type energy storage projects increases, the energy storage temperature control system will also face greater challenges. As an efficient cooling method, the increase in charging and discharging rates of energy storage systems requires the support of liquid cooling temperature control to achieve more efficient and reliable operation.
Liquid cooling is a cooling method that uses liquids such as water and ethylene glycol as media to reduce battery temperature through thermal convection. Compared to air cooling, the structure of liquid cooling systems is more complex and compact, without the need to deploy large heat dissipation channels, and occupies a relatively small area. Meanwhile, due to the higher heat transfer coefficient and specific heat capacity of the coolant, which are not affected by factors such as altitude and air pressure, liquid cooling systems have stronger heat dissipation capabilities than air-cooled systems, making them more suitable for the development trend of large-scale and high energy density energy storage projects. From a cost perspective, according to relevant research, under the same cooling effect, the energy consumption of liquid cooling systems is usually much lower than that of air-cooled systems.
Therefore, although the initial investment cost of liquid cooling systems is relatively high, their comprehensive cost throughout the entire lifecycle of energy storage systems may be lower than that of air-cooled systems.
