After more than a decade of development, MGA Thermal’s world-first commercial Electro-Thermal Energy Storage (ETES) system—capable of dispatching industrial-grade steam from renewable energy—has gone live.
This groundbreaking ETES technology significantly outperforms conventional sensible heat thermal storage, offering a viable pathway to 24/7 renewable heat for industries, effectively replacing reliance on carbon-intensive fossil fuels.
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MGA Thermal’s utilisation of latent heat means that energy is stored more compactly, both in physical plant footprint and storage temperature range. This serves to make latent heat ETES more space efficient, reliable, energy efficient and affordable than sensible heat storage.
The fully operational demonstration plant has produced steam output while the storage material undergoes a material phase change to release latent heat, establishing MGA Thermal as a unique solution provider in the urgent global effort to decarbonise heavy industry.
Steam, the workhorse of industrial manufacturing for centuries, underpins 44% of Australia’s energy consumption in heavy industries alone, with half dedicated to heat generation. Globally, industrial heat accounts for a staggering 25% of energy use and emissions, historically locking industries into carbon-intensive practices.
MGA Thermal’s newly commissioned demonstration plant shatters this paradigm by converting intermittent renewable electricity into reliably stored thermal energy, with the potential to scale to GWh storage capacities.
Located at MGA Thermal’s Tomago site, the compact demonstration unit (12m long, 3m wide, 4m tall) stores 5MWh of energy with a 500kW thermal dispatch power, providing continuous superheated steam for a full 24 hours—enough energy to power over 270 homes for the same duration.
MGA Thermal CEO Mark Croudace said, “Our now-operational demonstration plant isn’t just a concept—it’s a commercially viable solution ready for deployment.
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“As we gear up for full-scale commercialisation, our focus is on partnering with forward-thinking industries, both locally and globally, eager to embrace a sustainable future. The potential for significant emissions reduction is immense, and we are on track to abate 30 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030.
“This is the missing piece of the puzzle for heavy industry decarbonisation.”
