Contact us
 |
[email protected] |
 |
3275638434 |
 |
 |
| Paper Publishing WeChat |
Useful Links
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Overview of Concentrated Solar Power
Author(s)
Chukwubuikem Chukwuka and Komla Agbenyo Folly
Full-Text PDF
XML 281 Views
DOI:10.17265/1934-8975/2013.12.010
Affiliation(s)
ABSTRACT
CSP (concentrated solar
power) has been viewed as the technology that if properly developed could lead
to a large scale conversion of solar energy into electricity. CSP is a type of
solar energy converter that is classified as thermal converter because the
output power produced is a function of the operating temperature. The main
components of a CSP plant are the solar field which is made up of the heliostat
arrays, the receiver tower, the heat transfer fluid, the molten salt thermal
energy storage tanks and the power conversion unit, which is made up of the
turbine and the generator. The main advantage of CSP is that of a cheap thermal
storage (i.e., molten salt storage)
which makes it possible to dispatch power at a cost comparable to the grid electricity. Simulations run with the SAM (systems
advisory model) developed by NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) showed
that CSP is capable of delivering electricity at the cost of 17UScents per kWh for the 30-year life of the
plant. The main disadvantage of CSP however, is that of low efficiency (8%-16%). There are
ongoing research works to improve the efficiency of the CSP. One way to improve
the efficiency is to increase the operating
temperature of the system. In this paper, the authors discussed different modules of the CSP plant and suggested ways to improve on the conversion efficiencies of individual modules.
Finally, an overall systems performance simulation is carried using SAM and the
simulation results show that electricity can be produced using CSP
at the cost of R1.05 per kWh.
KEYWORDS
Concentrated solar power, heliostat, molten salt energy storage, SAM (systems advisory model), LCOE (levelised cost of electricity), blackbody receiver/emitter.
Cite this paper
References