Keep in mind when a camp counselor confirmed you the best way to use a magnifying glass to burn your title onto a chunk of wooden? That’s primarily what concentrated solar energy or CSP does. An array of mirrors unfold throughout a large space focus daylight on a single spot. The place the daylight converges, temperatures can attain 800º C or extra. That warmth can then be used to create superheated gases — steam or carbon dioxide, normally — to spin turbines that make electrical energy.
That’s if the solar is shining. However what occurs when the solar units? Is there some approach to retailer that free warmth so it might be used later? That’s a query researchers at Sandia Nationwide Laboratory have been working to reply since 2017. It sounds easy — warmth one thing up now then use that warmth later. However what’s that one thing? And what challenges need to be overcome with the intention to retailer that one thing at such excessive temperatures safely?
Sandia Concentrated Photo voltaic Energy Analysis
In 2018, Sandia created three analysis groups and turned them free to search out the solutions. Their mission was to find out whether or not liquid, stable, or gaseous supplies have been greatest for warmth storage at temperatures of 700º C or larger from each an effectivity and a security perspective. CSP plant working temperatures better than 700° Celsius have the potential to scale back the price of CSP methods by rising the effectivity of the power. In March of 2021, the Division of Power introduced that stable particles supplied essentially the most promising pathway to attaining larger temperatures in CSP vegetation to scale back the price of concentrated solar energy to 5 cents per kwh by 2030.
This week, the Division of Power held a groundbreaking ceremony at Sandia Labs for a CSP demonstration facility that may use its newest Gen 3 expertise. The design purpose for the plant is 1 gigawatt-hour (GWh) of power storage. “Subsequent-generation CSP has the potential to be a game-changer,” mentioned Alejandro Moreno, the appearing assistant secretary for power effectivity and renewable power. “This pilot facility will display how CSP methods can meet the challenges of offering lengthy period power storage whereas decreasing prices and complexity for photo voltaic thermal expertise. On the similar time, it additionally gives a pathway to commercialization for industrial course of warmth.”
Most concentrated solar energy vegetation at the moment use molten salt as the warmth storage medium and function at round 560º C. Amenities that function at larger temperatures are extra environment friendly, which interprets into decrease electrical energy costs. In keeping with a Sandia Labs press launch, the brand new facility will use a sand-like materials composed of ceramic bauxite particles. They are going to be launched on the high of a tower system, the place gravity pulls them by way of a so-called falling particle receiver (FPR). On their approach to the bottom, they move by way of a beam of concentrated daylight that heats them.
The heated particles might be saved for future use when the solar shouldn’t be shining or be used instantly along side a extremely environment friendly supercritical-CO2 Brayton cycle to generate electrical energy. The particles are then lifted to the highest of the tower to be dropped into the FPR to be reheated. The most important benefit of those particles is they will attain very excessive temperatures (>800°C) whereas conventional CSP warmth switch mediums can’t. This permits use of the environment friendly supercritical CO2 cycle, which makes producing electrical energy less expensive.
Free Doesn’t Imply Straightforward
Assume all that is simple? Assume once more, Sandia spent tens of 1000’s of hours on the pc simulations wanted to know how the FPR operated and account for variable components comparable to climate. This info was compiled to create an in depth view of yearly receiver efficiency and to develop key information factors for evaluating feasibility.
“The simulations assist us maximize the quantity of daylight the particles take in the place small modifications within the geometry, working situations, or atmosphere can have an effect on that absorption,” says researcher Brantley Mills. “The much less power the particles take in, the decrease the effectivity and the dearer it’s to generate electrical energy. These fashions are serving to us establish and reduce all of the thermal losses which will contribute to decrease effectivity.”
All that modeling and simulation have resulted in a receiver design that might be built-in into the Era 3 Particle Pilot Plant (G3P3) tower, which is anticipated to change into operational in 2024. The finished facility might be a totally built-in particle pilot plant that may assist reply questions concerning the integration and scaling of this expertise. If profitable, the expertise might be scaled as much as plant sizes as giant as 100 MW with the power to retailer power for later use when daylight shouldn’t be out there.
Excessive Temperature Concentrated Photo voltaic Energy Creates Engineering Challenges
As we reported in 2018, the excessive temperatures related to CSP services can result in challenges downstream. Warmth exchangers switch the warmth within the storage medium to the superheated carbon dioxide that turns the turbines. At present, these warmth exchangers are product of chrome steel or nickel-based alloys however they get too tender at larger temperatures and on the elevated stress of supercritical carbon dioxide. Researchers at Georgia Institute of Expertise, the College of Wisconsin – Madison, and Oak Ridge Nationwide Laboratory have developed new supplies that can be utilized in make warmth exchangers that function reliably at these larger temperatures and pressures.
The researchers seemed on the supplies used to make nozzles for stable gas rocket engines and created new warmth exchangers created from zirconium carbide and tungsten that may stand up to the excessive temperature, excessive stress situations supercritical carbon dioxide must generate electrical energy extra effectively. An financial evaluation by Georgia Tech and Purdue researchers additionally confirmed that the scaled up manufacturing of those warmth exchangers might be performed at comparable or decrease price than for chrome steel or nickel alloy-based items.
The Takeaway
Power from the solar is free. All we now have to do is determine the best way to harness it successfully. That second half shouldn’t be fairly as simple as the primary, because the work at Sandia Lab on concentrated solar energy makes clear. CSP could also be a part of the software equipment of renewable power sources the world might want to break our reliance on fossil fuels to generate the electrical energy we depend on to energy all of the gadgets we now have come to depend on.
Sandia Labs says that if the demonstration facility proves profitable, it might level the best way to concentrated solar energy vegetation able to offering 100 megawatts of electrical energy constantly, 24 hours a day, at very low price. CSP vegetation might be particularly beneficial for bringing electrical energy to distant areas not served by a conventional utility grid. That may be excellent news for humanity and the atmosphere.
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