A new life for coal power plants
A coal plant facing decommissioning is not a liability to be written off. It is an asset with significant remaining value. The steam turbines, generators, heat exchangers, and grid connections represent infrastructure that would cost far more to build new than to repurpose. The question is not whether the plant has a future. It is whether the right engineering exists to make that future technically and economically credible.
Aalborg CSP converts existing coal plants into large-scale thermal energy storage facilities. The coal-fired boiler is replaced with a molten salt thermal storage system charged by surplus renewable electricity from the grid. When electricity demand rises, the stored heat drives the existing steam turbines to produce dispatchable power, using infrastructure that is already installed, already grid-connected, and already fully functional.
✓ The coal is removed.
✓ The carbon is eliminated.
✓ The asset continues to generate revenue, now as a renewable energy storage facility rather than a fossil fuel generator.
The business case is driven by three converging factors:
- Accelerating coal phase-out timelines across Europe and beyond
- Rising carbon costs that make continued operation uneconomical, and
- Growing demand for large-scale dispatchable storage as renewable capacity expands.
For owners with a decommissioning decision ahead of them, the window to act before demolition becomes the only option is narrowing.
Some of the work where clients have called us on
How we helped AES Bulgaria make the case for conversion
When AES Bulgaria needed to assess whether TPP AES Galabovo could be converted into a large-scale energy storage facility, Aalborg CSP delivered the feasibility study and pre-engineering that turned the question into a credible investment case.
Discuss your project
We offer a free initial technical consultation to assess whether your challenge is one we can help with.