US Patent 7444818 Batch fired heat reservoirs

A power plant that burns a dirty fuel like coal to produce a hot gas stream, and directs the hot gas stream into a turbine to produce power. Located between the combustor and the turbine is at least two heat reservoirs that operate in parallel. When a first heat reservoir is being supplied with hot gas stream from the combustor to collect heat therein, the second and parallel heat reservoir is discharging its stored heat into a hot gas stream that leads into the turbine to produce power. When the heat reservoir delivering the hot gas stream to the turbine is low, the gas flow paths are switched such that the heat reservoir with the low heat storage in charged while the near fully charged heat reservoir then delivers heat to drive the turbine. The heat reservoirs contain a series of heat collectors in which the melting temperature of the heat collector in the upstream direction of the hot gas flow from the combustor is higher than the subsequent heat collectors, the melting temperature of the most downstream collector being the lowest.