Energy storage
Energy storage is essential to unlocking the full potential of renewable energy. Alfa Laval supports the transition to a decarbonized future with advanced heat exchangers designed for efficient, reliable performance in energy storage systems. Our technology helps store renewable energy for when it's needed most, making clean energy more accessible and effective.
In the transition to clean energy, growing and stabilizing the clean energy supply is one of the biggest challenges. While renewables usually are the cheapest power sources, they are mostly intermittent. That is, the sun is not always shining, and the wind is not always blowing, and certainly not exactly when we need them to.
By storing renewable energy, we can work around this problem. Effective long duration energy storage will be a critical element for global decarbonization and energy security.
Industrial heat and thermal energy storage
As industrial and domestic heat account for almost half of energy-related CO2 emissions, it requires as much attention as electricity production. Thermal energy storage plays a vital role in addressing this issue.
What is long duration energy storage?
Storing energy for a long time requires a range of solutions, many of which rely on heat exchangers as core components.
Pioneering the future of energy storage
At COP29 in Baku, countries pledged to increase global energy storage by six times its current capacity. By 2040, it will need to increase even further.
At Alfa Laval, we’re taking the lead in the energy transition. Thanks to nearly 90 years of development in thermal technologies, we have a broad portfolio of heat exchangers that meet the challenges associated with all energy storage systems.
Providing what is needed for long duration energy storage
The energy storage industry is competing with cheaper, subsidized gas energy. To succeed, it needs to lower costs over time.
For thermal energy storage, the technology is already well proven at commercial scale. The next step is to help the providers grow and improve their supply chains.
- We are developing a range of cost competitive and high efficiency heat exchangers that bring down the initial, and long-term, costs for energy storage providers.
- We are an anchor member of the LDES Council, building awareness of the need for energy storage solutions.
- As a global heat exchanger leader, we have the industry muscles and global supply chains to fully support technology providers in their scale-up journey.
Energy storage systems
Utility scale energy storage
The power sector accounts for roughly one-third of global carbon emissions and is crucial for global decarbonization. The sector is relatively easy to decarbonize. However, it would need energy storage systems, or power storage systems, to handle its ups and downs. Although renewable energy is cheap, these systems make it more expensive than gas.
Lowering costs and removing subsidies for natural gas are key challenges. Politicians need to support these changes.
Pumped heat energy storage
Alfa Laval heat exchangers are core components of efficient and low-cost energy storage systems, especially for grid-scale thermal and mechanical solutions. They handle the cyclic nature of these applications, working well with different temperatures, pressures, and fluids.
Our heat exchangers can already be found in many new energy storage systems, such as compressed air energy storage (CAES), liquid air energy storage (LAES), pumped heat energy storage (PHES), molten salt energy storage and many more.
Industrial heat decarbonization
Heat from industries and buildings makes up 20% of global CO2 emissions today and 50% of energy use. We often talk about clean electricity, but heat is a huge piece of the puzzle, because most industrial and building heat comes from fossil fuels.
Thermal energy storage (TES) for heat is already cost-effective. Industries can replace fossil-fuel boilers with electric ones and TES today to cut their carbon footprint immediately.
Thermal energy storage
TES makes heat applications (steam and hot air) cleaner by electrifying and firming heat with renewable energy sources, optimizing heat use in processes, and reusing the waste heat.
We offer a range of heat exchangers for many different working fluids and temperatures, up to 800°C.
Partnerships for efficient energy storage
Pioneering clean steam with energy storage
Alfa Laval and Build to Zero have partnered up to manufacture an innovative steam generator for industrial heat decarbonization.
This advanced steam generator is a key component in Build to Zero’s proprietary ThermalBox®, designed to deliver medium-pressure clean steam and drastically reduce CO? emissions across industrial processes, accelerating the path to a carbon-neutral future.
A game changer for renewable energy
Alfa Laval is proud to support Malta Inc. as both investor and technology partner in developing a groundbreaking thermal energy storage solution. Using molten salt, the system stores renewable energy for hours or days—then returns it to the grid when needed. Alfa Laval’s advanced heat transfer technology plays a key role in enabling this clean, flexible power solution.
Read more
Powering the future of heat with thermal energy storage (TES)
Alfa Laval and Hyme Energy joined forces to accelerate the development of molten salt thermal energy storage (TES) systems.
By combining Alfa Laval’s heat exchanger expertise with Hyme’s corrosion-resistant innovations, the partnership is driving efficient, cost-effective solutions for decarbonizing industrial heat and enabling clean energy generation.
Long Duration Energy Storage Council
Alfa Laval is an anchor member of the LDES Council, a CEO-led body with the ambition to drive innovation, commercialization and deployment of long duration energy storage.
The LDES Council is a member of the Global Renewables Alliance and has played a key role in influencing policy, regulations, and promoting energy storage targets, most recently (and successfully) at COP29.
Our solutions for energy storage systems
Alfa Laval semi-welded plate heat exchangers
Semi-welded plate heat exchangers are built for demanding duties. Alfa Laval’s unique gasket sealing system enables enhanced, long-term performance in applications with high pressures and temperatures. Safe and reliable sealing, no risk of cross-contamination and a compact design makes these heat exchangers an ideal choice for a variety of energy storage solutions.
Alfa Laval printed circuit heat exchangers
Alfa Laval printed circuit heat exchangers offer more than just high pressure and extreme temperature resistance – from cryogenic service to 800°C. They combine this with exceptionally high heat transfer efficiency, in a unit that’s up to 85 % smaller and lighter than comparable shell-and-tube exchangers. The unique design allows scalability of the heat exchanger from a few kilograms to many tonnes. Additionally, the micro-channels on each flow circuit can be designed to allow very high degrees of asymmetry between the fluid circuits, and each unit is fully customizable according to your exact needs.
Alfa Laval Wet Surface Air Coolers - WSAC
Alfa Laval Wet Surface Air Coolers (WSAC®) are custom built, closed-loop cooling and condensing systems that combine high performance, low operating costs, compact size and reliable operation. Renowned for their robust design and high efficiency, Alfa Laval WSACs are used in a large number of demanding industries. Their low water consumption and high cooling capacity have made them a popular choice in applications where low temperatures are required for process improvements.
Alfa Laval Dry air coolers
With an Alfa Laval finned tube air heat exchanger you get a robust cooler that will deliver high performance for many years to come. Our product range covers most applications in oil & gas, data centers, hydrogen, RNG and CCUS. We supply both standardized and fully customized, engineered-to-order solutions. Thanks to their flexible designs, we can configure our heat exchangers to match your specific operating conditions, ensuring reliable operation, low operating costs and high performance.
