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SOLWATT project started in May 2018 and involve 9 partners (4 research organizations CEA, CIEMAT, CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY and DLR- and 5 industrial partners TSK, BRIGHTSOURCE, FENIKS, RIOGLASS and TECKNIKER). SOLWATT project is devoted to the reduction of water consumption in CSP power plant. For this purpose, mirror field cleaning, turbine condenser cooling and water recovery are considered. Present paper is devoted more particularly to the cTES industrial prototype (cold thermal energy storage) used to reduce the water consumption related to condenser cooling. The cTES is based on a single-media thermocline storage used to partially or totally store the heat flow from the condenser when ambient temperatures are too high. Storage discharge is performed during the night. A 1000 m3 cTES prototype will be designed and constructed in the 50 MWe La Africana CSP power plant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The WASCOP (Water Saving for Concentrated Solar Power) project is an EU project dedicated to water saving in CSP power plants. Among the different technologies and aspects considered in the project, the concept of cold thermal energy storage (cTES) has been developed. cTES is considered in addition to the cooling system and used when ambient temperature is too high and may lead to turbine efficiency and electricity production reductions. In these conditions, heat from the condenser is partially stored in the cTES and evacuated trough the available cooler when ambient temperature is lower, typically during the night. A prototype of cTES has been built in the CEA site of Cadarache. Preliminary commissioning has been performed. Final commissioning is expected to be done before Spring 2019 and experimental tests will be made during Summer 2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thermocline energy storage is a way to store thermal energy by keeping two distinct zone of temperature in a tank, separated by a thin transition zone. Some applications use a granular porous media, filling the storage tank, through which passes the heat-transfer fluid. Most of scientific papers concerning this kind of technology assume that an ideal distribution of the fluid into the porous media is a homogeneous distribution over the diameter of the tank. On the other side, a recent numerical study concludes that a non-homogeneous distribution leads to better storage performances. Considering theses contradictory statements and the limited number of studies concerning the impact of distribution over thermal storage performances, a numerical simulation model is developed to investigate. This model is validated with data from the experimental device existing in CEA, in cases without distribution issues. Planned modifications of the experimental device for investigation of fluid’s distribution and validation of the model in such cases are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]