Energy gy Storage g Technology gy for Concentrating Solar Power

Center for Clean Energy Technology Chi Chinese A Academy d of fS Sciences i 2011.5
http://www.sari.ac.cn

Concentrating g Solar Power

Electricity Process heat

Solar radiation concentrated by reflectors at high temperature

Heat Storage or hybrid operation El t i it production Electricity d ti according to demand

Electricity and process heatprocess heat can g be used for cooling, drying, sea water desalination, etc.

Advantages g
CSP vs. PVThermal storage is much easier and cheaper compared to electricity storage;

Technology feasible & Economic viable

Provide continuous power supply, even at night i ht or cloudy l d d days; Shift power production according to demand; Achieve higher annual capacity factorsfrom 25% without thermal storage g up p to 70% or more with it; power g generation cost. Lower p

Andasol Spain: 50MW

Two heat storage tanks:

14m in height, 36m in diameter; 28500 tons of molten salts; 60%NaNO3+40% KNO3.

Heat storage5% of the total cost

Increase annual power production hours from 2000h to 3600h; Increase ann annual al electricit electricity prod production ction from 100GWH to180 GWH.

Classifications
Storage systems
Direct Thermal Energy Storage Two tanks Indirect Thermal Energy gy Storage g Single-tank thermocline (under developed)

Storage media
Oil Molten salts Concrete and ceramics Phase-change materials Alloys All
Sensible heat

Latent heat

Direct and indirect TES

Direct TES use same working medium as heat h t transfer t f fluid fl id (HTF) and d heat h t storage material
Fewer heat exchange steps Simple p cheap p?

Indirect TES use different media as heat transfer fluid (HTF) and heat storage material
Additional heat exchange steps are required Higher working temp and higher efficiency

Two-tank Direct/indirect
Advantagesimple idea and easy operation, the thermal energy gy storage g medium is stored in a cold and a hot tank separately. The cold fluid is charged by absorbing heat from the solar field, and stored in the hot storage tank for later use. Later, when the energy in storage is needed, the system will release heat, generating steam to run the power plant plant. Because of two-tank configuration, g , especially p y indirect system, need for extra heat exchangers, a two-tank system is relatively expensive. Most plants under development plan l t to use two t tanks t k indirect i di t thermal energy storage system.

Storage Materials
Current CSP plants: synthetic heat cond cti e oil & molten salts are most conductive commonly used.
Project Andasol Solar Tres SEGS I Solar One Solar Two IGCC Algeria g IGCC Morocco EURELIOS Archimede Dahan Country Spain Spain USA USA USA Algeria g Morocco Italy Italy China Technology Parabolic Trough Tower Parabolic Trough Tower Tower Parabolic Trough g Parabolic Trough Tower Parabolic Trough Tower Storage Material Molten Salt Molten Salt Oil Oil/Rock Molten Salt Oil Oil Molten Salt Molten Salt Oil

Comparison between Oil and Molten salts

TES Material Mineral Oil Synthetic Oil Silicone Oil
Biphenyl/diphenyl oxide (Therminol VP1 oil)

Melting Point (C) 13 220 142

Upper Temp limit (C) 300 400 400 400 600 535

Density (kgm-3) 770 900 900 815 1899 1640

Thermal Conductivity ( WmgK W mg K-1) 0.12 0 11 0.11 0.10 0 21 0.21 0.52 0.57

Heat Capacity (kJ kg K-1) (kJkgK 2.6 23 2.3 2.1 23 2.3 1.46 1.6

Solar salts Hitec

Hitec XL 120 500 1992 0.53 1.8 *Solar S l salt lt (40% KNO3+60NaNO3), KNO3 60N NO3) Hit Hitec(53 (53KNO3+ KNO3 7NaNO3+40 N NO3 40NaNO2), N NO2) Hit Hitec XL (45
KNO3+48Ca(NO3)2+7NaNO3)

Physical properties: Heat Conductive Oil low melting point but with limited upper temperature temperature, *Heat *Molten Salts Higher working temperature limit, but with high melting point,

Comparison between the costs

Storage Material Solar Salt Hitec Hitec XL Melting Point (C) 220 142 120 Temperature Cost of the difference material itself (C) ($/kg) $ 200 200 200 100 0.49 0 93 0.93 1.19 2.20 Cost of the Heat Storage ( $/kWh) $ 5.8 10 7 10.7 15.2 57.5

Therminol VP-1 13

Hitec XI is the most expensive among all salts, but still 70% cheaper than Therminol VP1; A study shows, shows compared to Therminol VP1 VP1, using Hitec XI can increase the electricity production capacity by ~8%, and LCOE down by 1-1.5 cent/kWh. Oils are expensive, p , fire hazardous, , and other environmental concerns; ; Generally Speaking, molten Salts are cheaper, non-toxic, safer, even sometimes are corrosive to the pipelines; can operate at higher temperature, p results in higher g power p production p efficiency, y low technology and financial risksshort term main stream choice.

Solid Media: Concrete and ceramics

Primary advantage
low cost Easily modulated

Primary issues

how h t to maintain i t i good d contact t tb between t th the solid lid media di and d piping; the cost of piping counts 45-55% of the whole system; the heat transfer rates into and out of the solid medium.
Better layout, including the geometric dimensions and piping and module arrangement to minimize pressure losses and optimize manufacturing aspects and costs; Better integration with the solar field and power cycle; l Improvements in the heat capacity and physical strength can be achieved by adding additives, Wuhan University of Technology achieved thermal conductivity doubled the one of DLR.

Research focuses

Latent Heat: Phase-Change Materials

Phase-change materials (PCMs) allow large amounts t of f energy to t be b stored t d in i relatively l ti l small volumes, resulting in some of the lowest storage media costs of any storage concepts;
60% reduction in container size; 2% to 3% improvement in overall system efficiency; Flexibility to operate with different steam cycles; Flexibility to store energy when collection temperature less than designed high temperature;

Potential to reduce LCOE costs by 6% to 9%.

PCM in CSP
PCM
NaNO3 NaNO2 NaOH KNO3 KOH (7.2%) ) NaOH/Na2CO3 ( NaOH/NaCl (26.8) NaCl/KCl (32.4%)/LiCl (32.8%) Na2SO4/NaCl (5.7%)/NaNO3 (85.5%) NaCl/NaNO3 (5.0%) g ( (42.5%)/KCl ) ( (20.5%) ) MgCl2/NaCl NaNO3/KNO3 (10%) KNO3/KCl (4.5%) KNO3/KBr (4.7%)/KCl (7.3%) Na2CO3-BaCO3/MgO

Melting Point C
310 282 318 337 360 283 370 346 287 282 385~393 290 320 342 500-850

Latent Heat kJ kg-1

174 212 158 167 116 340 369 281 176 212 410 170 150 140 415.4

Challenges
PCM1 Heat storag ge PCM2 PCM3 PCM4 PCM2 PCM5 Solution 2:Hybrid of PCM and conventional storage media Hea at discha arge PCM1 Sensible heat storage media

Solution1:Cascade of PCM

Challenges
Difficulty or complexity of the heat exchange system design; Thermodynamic penalty of going from sensible heat to latent ; heat and back to sensible heat; Uncertainty for the life-cycle.

Latent Heat: Metal alloys

Advantages
High density, high heat conductivity, good heat distribution
properties, ti l low sub-cooling b li d degree, and d phase h segregation, ti chemically stable, can be used at high temperature;

Issues
Corrosive to the metal containers, especially at high temperature; Lost of heat capacities after charge/discharge cycles;
Alloys y ( Mass %) ) 46.3%Mg-53.7%Zn 96%Zn-4%Al 34 65M 65 35Al 34.65Mg-65.35Al 64.1Al-5.2Si-28Cu-2.2Mg 38.5Al-5.0Si-26.5Cu 64.3-34.0Cu-1.7Sb 83.14Al-11.7Si-5.16Mg 87 76Al 12 24Si 87.76Al-12.24Si 46.3Al-4.6Si-49.1Cu 86.4Al-9.4Si-4.2Sb Melting g Point (C) ) 340 381 497 507 525 545 555 557 571 471 Latent Heat ( (J/g) g) 185 138 285 374 364 331 485 498 406 471

Takeaway points
The development of thermal storage t h l technology plays l essential ti l role l i in improving the performance of CSP plant, and lowering the cost (LCOE); Short term technology choice (main stream ): Two-tank molten salts
Technology T h l and d economic i viable i bl

Medium to long g term technology gy trend

PCM

Thank you! y