With the rapid advancement of renewable energy power generation

thermal power units need to take on major peaking tasks. Molten salt thermal storage technology

as a prominent method for thermal power peaking

can effectively improve peaking performance of the units. The Ebsilon software is employed to model a subcritical 300 MW unit integrated with coupled molten salt thermal storage system. Considering the operational conditions of supplying industrial steam to external entities

several indexes such as the storage/exothermic thermal efficiency

load variation and thermoelectric conversion rate of three heat storage/exothermic schemes are investigated comparatively. The results indicates that

during the heat storage process

the heat storage scheme 3(the heat source for heat storage is the main steam

reheat steam and medium-pressure cylinder exhaust

and the exothermic medium-pressure cylinder exhaust goes directly to the condenser) exhibits the highest load variation

reaching up to 102.63 MW. Meanwhile

the heat storage scheme 1(employing main steam and reheat steam as the heat source for storage) demonstrates the superior thermal efficiency at 28.76%. During the discharge process

exothermic scheme 2(heat from high-temperature molten salt is used to supply industrial steam and preheat condensate) has the largest load variation

release thermal efficiency

and thermoelectricity conversion rate

which are 34.69 MW

46.14%

and 59.07%

respectively. This study can provide theoretical guidance for the study of peak performance and thermal economy of thermal power units coupled with molten salt thermal storage system.