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With the improvement of people's living standards, they have higher requirements for indoor thermal comfort in the cold season. Solar wall utilizing solar energy for heating can reduce carbon emissions and achieve carbon neutrality. In the aspect of solar wall research, the influence of wall structure on the thermal performance of double-channel porous solar wall is limitedly investigated. In fact, the optimization design of wall structure is important for the thermal performance of solar wall and its applications. Therefore, a simplified three dimensional room model is built to study the influence of the wall structure on the thermal performance of porous solar wall by numerical simulation. With this model, different channel spacing and thickness of porous walls were used to determine the optimal design for a double-channel porous solar wall in terms of enhancing the heat storage. Moreover, the influence of the surface emissivity on the characteristics of heating and temperature field of double-channel porous solar wall are studied based on the optimal structure. The CFD simulation results indicate that the optimal structure parameters should include spacing of 0.08 m for channel 1, the porous wall thickness should be 0.08 m, and the air channel 2 spacing should be 0.06 m. The temperature of air channel 1 and air channel 2, the indoor temperature, and the heat storage of porous wall decrease with the increase of the surface emissivity of the porous wall. In order to improve the heat storage performance of double-channel porous solar wall, the outer surface of the porous wall should use a lower emissivity material. The outer surface emissivity of porous wall has a significant impact on the heat storage of the porous wall and little effect on the thermal storage wall. The temperature of porous wall is always higher than that of outdoor environment temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hybrid renewable energy system based on concentrated solar power (CSP) technology has been demonstrated as a promising approach to utilise renewable energy. To combine the configuration and operation with practical application scenarios, this study investigates three different operation modes of the hybrid system which consists of one or more components of a CSP power plant, a thermal energy storage system, photovoltaic (PV) panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric heaters. A multi-objective optimisation for the capacity parameters of subsystems is conducted for three operation modes and two typical locations, considering the actual power demand and electricity prices. Results show that cooperating with the given CSP plant, the simultaneous development of PV panels, wind turbines and batteries is recommended in Delingha, while in Lhasa, the improvement relies more on the expansion of PV panels and batteries. By providing 31.50%–38.72% of the total power, the CSP subsystem contributes significantly to providing reliable electricity in fluctuating weather conditions and at night. And 20.58–59.85 GWh of excess electricity is reused through electric heaters instead of being wasted. Furthermore, the operation in local consumption mode shows the best resilient to uncertainty of the meteorological conditions, with the deviation within 1% under forecast error of 5%–20%. • Optimal configurations are obtained for three operation modes in two locations. • Performance curves in local consumption mode show consistency across sites. • Similar trends but higher profit is obtained in VPP mode compared to sales mode. • Electric heaters enable 20.58–59.85 GWh of electricity reused instead of wasted. • A deviation of 1 % is seen in local consumption mode for forecast errors of 5%–20 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Solar aided coal-fired power system has been proven to be a promising way to utilise solar energy in large scale. In this paper, the performances of the solar tower aided coal-fired power (STACP) system at 100% load, 75% load, and 50% load for different days are investigated and the maximum solar power that the boiler can absorb under different plant loads are explored. Then, the effects of solar multiple (SM) and the thermal energy storage (TES) hour on the daily performance of STACP system are investigated. Results show that the maximum solar power that a 600 MW e boiler can absorb at 100% load, 75% load and 50% load are 76.4 MW th , 54.2 MW th and 23.0 MW th , respectively. Due to the augmented energy from the solar field, the maximum standard coal consumption rate is reduced by 13.53 g/kWh, 12.81 g/kWh and 8.22 g/kWh at 100% load, 75% load and 50% load, respectively. With an increase of solar power input, the boiler efficiency, overall system efficiency and solar thermal-to-electricity efficiency show a downward trend. In addition, the daily coal consumption of summer solstice is the lowest while the winter solstice is the highest for a particular SM and TES hour. Highlights • Performances of STACP system are investigated at different loads with different solar shares. • The maximum solar energy that the boiler can absorb is determined. • Performances of STACP system are investigated at different weather conditions. • Daily performance of STACP system are explored with different SM and TES hours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pollutant emissions from coal-fired power system have been receiving increasing attention over the past few years. Integration of solar thermal energy can greatly reduce pollutant emissions from these power stations. The performances of coal-fired power system (S1), solar aided coal-fired power system with thermal storage (S2), and solar aided coal-fired power system without thermal storage (S3) with three capacities of each kind of system (i.e., nine subsystems) were analyzed over the entire life span. The pollutant emissions and primary energy consumptions (PECs) of S1, S2, and S3 were estimated using life cycle assessment (LCA). The evaluation value of global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP), respiratory effects potential (REP) and PEC were obtained based on the LCA results. Furthermore, the system investments were estimated, and grey relation theory was used to evaluate the performance of the three types of systems comprehensively. Finally, in order to find the effect of some main factors on the solar aided coal-fired power system (SACFPS), uncertainty analysis has been carried out. The LCA results show that the pollutant emissions and PEC mainly take place in the fuel processing and operation stages for all three system types, and S2 performs the best among the three systems based on the grey relation analysis results. And the uncertainty analysis shows that with longer life span, the power system have better performance; with higher coal price, the power system will have worse performance; with lower solar collector field cost, the solar aided coal-fired power system will be more profitable than the base-case coal-fired power system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integration of thermal energy storage with concentrated solar power (CSP) plant aids in smoothing of the variable energy generation from renewable sources. Supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO 2) cycles can reduce the levelised cost of electricity of a CSP plant through its higher efficiency and compact footprint compared to steam-Rankine cycles. This study systematically integrates nine sCO 2 cycles including two novel configurations for CSP applications with a two-tank sensible heat storage system using a multi-objective optimisation. The performance of the sCO 2 cycles is benchmarked against the thermal performance requirement of an ideal power cycle to reduce the plant overnight capital cost. The impacts of the compressor inlet temperature (CIT) and maximum turbine inlet temperature (TIT) on the cycle selection criteria are discussed. The influence of the cost function uncertainty on the selection of the optimal cycle is analysed using Monte-Carlo simulation. One of the novel cycle configurations (C8) proposed can reduce the overnight capital cost by 10.8% in comparison to a recompression Brayton cycle (C3) for a CIT of 55 °C and TIT of 700 °C. This work describes design guidelines facilitating the development/selection of an optimal cycle for a CSP application integrated with two-tank thermal storage. • Optimisation of 9 sCO 2 cycles (2 novel) integrated with CSP and sensible heat TES. • Techno-economic evaluation of impact of heat addition temperature difference (ΔT). • Maximum cycle efficiency away from the optimal heat addition ΔT increases TES cost. • Increasing turbine inlet temperature from 600 to 700 °C increases overnight cost. • Novel cycle reduces the overnight capital cost by 10.8% over recompression cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Off-design Pareto fronts of sCO 2 cycle using multi-objective optimisation approach. • Storage capacity reduces by 25% at 55 °C compressor inlet temperature (design = 42 °C). • Off-design compressor inlet pressure estimation method to maximise efficiency. • Capacity factor increases by 10.8% when operating the plant in maximum power mode. • Number of start-ups reduce by about 50% when operating in maximum efficiency mode. Supercritical Carbon Dioxide (sCO 2) cycles can achieve higher efficiency compared to steam-Rankine or Air-Brayton cycles, therefore they are promising for concentrated solar power applications. Although sCO 2 cycles show higher design efficiency, the off-design efficiency is highly sensitive to the ambient conditions, impacting the power block net-power and heat input. In the present work a recompression sCO 2 cycle is connected to a central-tower solar field with two-tank thermal storage delivering molten chloride salt at 670 °C. The temperature of the molten-salt exiting from the power block and returning to the cold storage tank increases by 46 °C with respect to the design value when the compressor inlet temperature is raised by 13 °C relative to the design condition of 42 °C, which implies that the capacity of the thermal storage reduces by 25%. The main focus of this work is to investigate the off-design performance of a sCO 2 recompression cycle under variable ambient temperature, molten-salt inlet temperature and molten-salt flow rate. Multi-objective optimisation is carried-out in off-design conditions using an in-house code to explore the optimal operational strategies and the Pareto fronts were compared. Since the power cycle can either be operated in maximum power mode or maximum efficiency mode, this study compares these two operational strategies based on their annual performance. Results indicate that the capacity factor of the concentrated solar power can be increased by 10.8% when operating in maximum power mode whilst the number of start-ups is reduced by about 50% when operating in maximum efficiency mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]