Laughlin Battery – Google Recuperator
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Laughlin Battery – Google Recuperator

  • Google has made a public commitment to renewable energy for their growing data center power demands.
  • The Laughlin-Brayton Battery is intended for utility-scale renewable energy storage.
  • Brayton designed heat exchangers for the recuperator, molten salt, and hexane fluids.
  • The plant layout (right) shows the integrated system, with Brayton’s gas turbine design. The system is clearly dominated by heat exchangers.
  • The goals of this project were to design, build, instrument, and test a recuperator and molten salt heat exchangers. This data was use to further validate Brayton analytical design tools.
  • Active since 2011, Brayton remains committed to bringing realism to Bob Laughlin’s theory of a high efficiency reversible Brayton cycle energy storage system.

Laughlin Brayton Battery

Laser Welded Seams
Recuperator assembly for welding
Recuperator Core: High pressure work air inlet manifold
Exhaust Side Exit
Assemble and Instrumented on Test Station