Research on the Coupling Technology of Molten Salt Energy Storage and Coal-Fired Units in the Field of Industrial Steam Supply

To achieve the goals of “carbon peaking” and “carbon neutrality,” the installed capacity of new energy sources is increasing year by year, making the construction of a new type of power system imperative. This raises higher requirements for the flexibility of coal-fired power units. Therefore, researching the coupling technology of molten salt energy storage with coal-fired units to enhance their flexibility and peak-shaving capability holds significant practical importance. This study explores heat storage through electric heating, as well as the extraction of main steam and reheated steam thermal sections, to store heat. The heat stored in molten salt is used independently for industrial steam supply. Six different heat storage coupling schemes and one heat release scheme are proposed. Using EBSILON modeling, coal consumption, heat storage power, thermal efficiency, and exergy efficiency of different schemes are calculated and comparatively analyzed to identify the optimal coupling scheme. The results indicate that among the steam extraction heat storage schemes, Scheme 1 achieves the best coupling effect. When the unit load is reduced by 60 MW, the heat storage system’s thermal efficiency and exergy efficiency of Scheme 1 are $48.49 \%$ and $42.34 \%$, respectively. During heat release, the system ensures that the unit can operate at full load for power generation while providing a certain amount of industrial steam.