Energy economic evaluation of process heat supply by solar tower and high temperature reactor based on the ammonia production process

摘要

Changing the heat supply of energy intensive industries from today's mostly fossil sources to nuclear of renewable sources offers the opportunity of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Many industrial processes require heat at a high temperature level, which restricts the selection of the heat source. The high temperature reactor (HTR) as a nuclear and the solar tower as a renewable technology are technically capable of supplying high temperature process heat, but their implementation on an industrial scale depends not only on the technical feasibility but also on the economic competitiveness to the conventional basically fossil heat supply. In this paper, the economics of the high temperature process heat supply by HTR and solar tower are analyzed and the question whether these alternative systems can compete to the fossil heat supply is answered. The analyses focus on the example process of ammonia production. A new mathematical optimization model is applied which determines the optimal facilities sizes and the optimal facilities operation modes for different energy supply systems.