HyKro B.V.

HyKro bv. is a young and dynamic company founded in January 2023 and working as a product and process development organization within the energy transition market, more specifically the market for energy storage in the form of heat. Product development is initially focused on a solid-state heat battery, which, based on a mixture of sand and iron grit, can realize medium-term storage (between 1 week and 1 month), converting electricity into heat up to a maximum of 500 degrees Celsius. The dimensions of the storage vessel are 3 meters diameter and 7 meters height, realizing a storage capacity of 8 MWh, a charging capacity of 50 KW and a discharging capacity 25 KW. The charging capacity can be switched on and off by the hour, allowing it to be deployed when the electricity price falls below Euro 0.04/KWh according to the EPEX market. The discharge power can be used independently of charging. The heat battery developed has the unique feature that the heat insulation of the storage vessel is realized by vacuum and this vacuum pump is also used to extract heat from the heat battery. This principle has been filed for patent protection.

The goal is to build and field test a prototype system in 2024. This prototype system will have a storage capacity of 2 MWh, a charging capacity of 8 KWh and a discharging capacity of 3 KWh. The design of the prototype system is attached for your information.

Existing and new heat networks have been identified as a potential market, because there is a clear requirement in the Netherlands to make heat networks more sustainable until 2030, and this heat battery(s) offers an opportunity to partially make existing gas-fired CHP systems more sustainable without excessive construction and system engineering modifications.

Photos from HyKro B.V.