A quest to the cheapest method for electricity generation in Concentrating Solar Power plants

摘要

A systematic analysis is presented of a CSP plant family based on: 1. A solar radiation concentrator according to the Advanced Fresnel linear mirror system which optimizes the ratio between captured radiation and weigh of the concentrator. 2. A receiver using dry air (at 10 MPa) as heat carrier fluid, working as a bunch of pipes with outstanding performances of thermal efficiency. 3. A low-losses receiver using air at a constant pressure of 0.1 MPa, with strong suppression of radiation and convection.. 4. A plant layout with to separated regions, the inner one directly connected to the Power Block through a steam generator; and the outer region where hot air is driven to an intermediate heat exchanger where a stream of molten salt is heated, and collected, and sent to a second steam generator feeding the power block. 5. The molten salt streams can be stored as thermal energy storage, so that the plant can be fully regulated and could work after sunset. The main result is that a simple and robust design of CSP plants embodying a number of patents and other innovations can be identified as a main road to reach commercial maturity and to low down costs until becoming competitive with traditional energy sources. This technology is estimated to achieve annual efficiencies of 13%, in the same order of magnitude than parabolic trough collectors.