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This work presents a laboratory scale 50kWhth prototype of an innovative radial flow packed bed thermal energy storage. The proposed storage has an inward radial heat transfer fluid flow during charge and a reverted fluid flow, by means of a valve arrangement, during discharge. The storage unit is equipped with differential pressure gauges, mass flow controller and 50 K-thermocouples to accurately measure the thermodynamic behavior of the unit. In order to assess the performance of the proposed thermal energy storage design two specific indicators have been introduced and defined, namely: the temperature uniformity, and the hydrodynamic uniformity. The results of preliminary CFD studies show a maximum temperature deviation of 20°C along the storage axial direction and uniformity indexes higher than 90%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work assesses the thermodynamic performance of an indirect supercritical CO2 – air driven concentrated solar plant with a packed bed thermal energy storage. A specific focus has been devoted to the flexibility requirements on both air and supercritical loops, highlighting key limitations and challenges that need to be addresses prior fruitful development of proposed cycles. The introduced plant design enables a supercritical CO2 turbine inlet temperature of 800°C, overcoming the temperature limits imposed by the use of solar molten salts as primary heat transfer fluid. Furthermore, the packed bed thermal energy storage permits the decoupling between thermal power collection from the sun and electricity generation. Besides, it grants operational flexibility and enlarges the plant capacity factor. Results show that the proposed indirect supercritical CO2 – air driven with a packed bed thermal energy storage concentrated solar plant leads to improved thermodynamic performance with respect to the molten salts driven design, particularly when working at high temperature, above molten salts limit. Enhancements in the power cycle efficiency and in the overall electricity production can be achieved, with a consequent increase of the capacity factor. Furthermore, the proposed system seems viable for the coupling with other power sources as PVs or secondary, low temperature, power cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parabolic trough power plants using thermal oil as heat transfer fluid are the most mature concentrating solar power technology and state of the art. To further increase their efficiency and lower costs, molten salts can be used as heat transfer fluid. This results in higher operating temperature differences for improved cycle efficiencies and enables direct thermal energy storage at lower costs due to omission of the oil-to-salt heat exchanger and the need for smaller storage sizes. As a variety of salts are available to choose from, this study uses a multi-objective optimization to identify the most suitable heat transfer fluid for three locations in South Africa, Spain and Chile. The lowest values for the levelized costs of electricity (LCOE) can be found in Chile using Solar Salt as heat transfer fluid (75.0 $/MWhe). Generally, Solar Salt offers the lowest LCOE values followed by thermal oil and Hitec. The results also suggest that the choice of the heat transfer fluid is dependent on the direct normal irradiance (DNI) at each location. Thermal oil is competitive with Solar Salt in small systems at locations with low DNI values, whereas Hitec can be cheaper than thermal oil in large systems at locations with high DNI. Furthermore, it is also investigated at which freeze alert temperature set point the activation of the freeze protection system is optimal. The results indicate that this temperature should be chosen close to the solar field inlet temperature for small systems, while it can be lowered significantly for large systems to reduce electricity consumption from the freeze protection system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among concentrating solar power technologies, direct steam generation solar tower power plants represent a promising option. These systems eliminate the usage of heat transfer fluids allowing for the power block to be run at greater operating temperatures and therefore further increasing the thermal efficiency of the power cycle. On the other hand, the current state of the art of these systems does not comprise thermal energy storage as there are no currently available and techno-economically feasible storage integration options. This situation makes direct steam generation configurations even more susceptible to the already existing variability of operating conditions due to the fluctuation of the solar supply. In the interest of improving the annual performance and competitiveness of direct steam generation solar tower systems, the present study examines the influence of implementing two flexibility enhancing concepts which control the steam flow to the turbine as a function of the incoming solar irradiation. The proposed concepts were implemented in a reference plant model previously developed by the authors. Then, a multi-objective optimization was carried out in order to understand which configurations of the steam turbine concepts yield reductions of the levelized cost of electricity at a lower investment costs when compared to the reference model. Results show that the implementation of the proposed strategies can enhance the thermo-economic performance of direct steam generation systems by yielding a reduction of up to 9.2% on the levelized cost of electricity, mainly due to allowing 20% increase in the capacity factor, while increasing the investment costs by 7.8%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]