PDF Publication Title:
Text from PDF Page: 094
4.2.5 Approach and Tasks 4.2.5.1 Trough Technology Approach and Tasks Although parabolic-trough solar technology is not economically competitive in today’s energy market, it appears to have significant potential for cost reduction. Key advantages of the technology are its simplicity and use of standard equipment and materials. Based on extensive commercial operating experience, parabolic-trough technology is considered to have a lower technical risk than many technologies and, thus, a lower financial risk. The technology R&D plan attempts to build on these strengths through the following key tasks: I. Developing less costly and more efficient parabolic trough solar field technology. To achieve long-term goals, the cost of the solar collector technology needs to be reduced by half, from about $250/m2 to $125/m2, and the annual solar field efficiency needs to increase from 37% at current plants to about 52% at future plants. At the same time, the peak operating temperature will be increased from 390o to 500oC. The key to reducing costs is reducing the cost of the structure, mirrors, and receivers. Near-term efforts focus on optimizing the structure of current steel/thick-glass concentrators and increasing the concentrator size (relative to the LS-2 parabolic collector). This effort is expected to reduce costs to the $180 to $200/m2 range without any reduction in mirror or receiver cost. Volume production and increased competition should help reduce prices even further. In the longer term, further cost reduction can be achieved through technology advances. For mirrors, this is accomplished by moving from heavy glass mirror reflectors to lightweight front-surface reflectors that include surface coatings to reduce soiling. Advanced-receiver cost reduction focuses on improving the reliability of the glass-to-metal seal and developing a lower cost and higher performing selective coating. Advanced concentrator designs that use integrated structural reflectors are expected to allow significant reductions in the cost of the structure and reflectors. II. Developing efficient and lower-cost thermal energy storage (TES) technologies. The integration of thermal storage is needed to boost overall plant capacity factors for solar-only operation from about 25% in current plants without thermal storage to more than 50% in the future. This will enable dispatching and increase the value of the power. A near-term TES option has been developed that uses molten nitrate salt as the storage medium in a two-tank system and has an oil-to- salt heat exchanger to transfer thermal energy from the solar field to the storage system. Near-term TES R&D efforts optimize this design to reduce cost and minimize technical risk. The current near- term TES option has a unit cost of $30 to $40/kWht depending on storage capacity. Substantial cost reduction, by a factor of three or more, is required to meet longer-term TES cost goals. The approach being taken to reduce future TES costs is to (1) go from an indirect system that requires a heat exchanger to one that uses the same fluid in the solar field and storage system, (2) move from a two- tank system to a single-tank thermocline storage system, and (3) increase the hot and cold temperature differential in the storage system. The key here is to find a heat-transfer fluid (HTF) that is suitable for both the solar field and the storage system. Two HTF approaches are currently being pursued. The first option looks at using an inorganic molten nitrate salt. The key technical issues with inorganic molten-nitrate salt are the relatively high freeze point of the salt (120oC and up) and the need to develop appropriate valve and ball-joint packing materials that survive the high temperatures (450o to 500oC). The R&D plan for this type of HTF focuses on resolving the freeze protection and packing issues, developing reliable collector-interconnect piping, demonstrating the lifetime of the TES filler material, and demonstrating the system elements in the field. The second HTF option under consideration is to use an organic salt. Organic salts offer many of the same advantages of inorganic molten salts, but many also have the added benefit of being liquid at ambient temperatures. The primary issue with organic salts is to find one that is thermally stable at the high temperature and is not too expensive. Solar Energy Technologies Program Multi-Year Technical Plan 85PDF Image | Solar Energy Technologies Program
PDF Search Title:
Solar Energy Technologies ProgramOriginal File Name Searched:
33875.pdfDIY PDF Search: Google It | Yahoo | Bing
NFT (Non Fungible Token): Buy our tech, design, development or system NFT and become part of our tech NFT network... More Info
IT XR Project Redstone NFT Available for Sale: NFT for high tech turbine design with one part 3D printed counter-rotating energy turbine. Be part of the future with this NFT. Can be bought and sold but only one design NFT exists. Royalties go to the developer (Infinity) to keep enhancing design and applications... More Info
Infinity Turbine IT XR Project Redstone Design: NFT for sale... NFT for high tech turbine design with one part 3D printed counter-rotating energy turbine. Includes all rights to this turbine design, including license for Fluid Handling Block I and II for the turbine assembly and housing. The NFT includes the blueprints (cad/cam), revenue streams, and all future development of the IT XR Project Redstone... More Info
Infinity Turbine ROT Radial Outflow Turbine 24 Design and Worldwide Rights: NFT for sale... NFT for the ROT 24 energy turbine. Be part of the future with this NFT. This design can be bought and sold but only one design NFT exists. You may manufacture the unit, or get the revenues from its sale from Infinity Turbine. Royalties go to the developer (Infinity) to keep enhancing design and applications... More Info
Infinity Supercritical CO2 10 Liter Extractor Design and Worldwide Rights: The Infinity Supercritical 10L CO2 extractor is for botanical oil extraction, which is rich in terpenes and can produce shelf ready full spectrum oil. With over 5 years of development, this industry leader mature extractor machine has been sold since 2015 and is part of many profitable businesses. The process can also be used for electrowinning, e-waste recycling, and lithium battery recycling, gold mining electronic wastes, precious metals. CO2 can also be used in a reverse fuel cell with nafion to make a gas-to-liquids fuel, such as methanol, ethanol and butanol or ethylene. Supercritical CO2 has also been used for treating nafion to make it more effective catalyst. This NFT is for the purchase of worldwide rights which includes the design. More Info
NFT (Non Fungible Token): Buy our tech, design, development or system NFT and become part of our tech NFT network... More Info
Infinity Turbine Products: Special for this month, any plans are $10,000 for complete Cad/Cam blueprints. License is for one build. Try before you buy a production license. May pay by Bitcoin or other Crypto. Products Page... More Info
CONTACT TEL: 608-238-6001 Email: greg@infinityturbine.com (Standard Web Page)