Commercial Development of an Advanced, High-Temperature, Linear-Fresnel Based Concentrating Solar Power Concept
- SkyFuel Inc., Arvada, CO (United States); SkyFuel
- SkyFuel Inc., Arvada, CO (United States)
Included herein is SkyFuel’s detailed assessment of the potential for a direct molten salt linear Fresnel collector. Linear Fresnel architecture is of interest because it has features that are well suited for use with molten salt as a heat transfer fluid: the receiver is fixed (only the mirrors track), the receiver diameter is large (reducing risk of freeze events), and the total linear feet of receiver can be reduced due to the large aperture area. Using molten salt as a heat transfer fluid increases the allowable operating temperature of a collector field, and the cost of thermal storage is reduced in proportion to that increase in temperature. At the conclusion of this project, SkyFuel determined that the cost goals set forth in the contract could not be reasonably met. The performance of a Linear Fresnel collector is significantly less than that of a parabolic trough, in particular due to linear Fresnel’s large optical cosine losses. On an annual basis, the performance is 20 to 30% below that of a parabolic trough per unit area. The linear Fresnel collector and balance of system costs resulted in an LCOE of approximately 9.9¢/kWhre. Recent work by SkyFuel has resulted in a large aperture trough design (DSP Trough) with an LCOE value of 8.9 ¢/kWhre calculated with comparative financial terms and balance of plant costs (White 2011). Thus, even though the optimized linear Fresnel collector of our design has a lower unit cost than our optimized trough, it cannot overcome the reduction in annual performance.
- Research Organization:
- SkyFuel Inc., Arvada, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
- DOE Contract Number:
- FC36-08GO18034
- OSTI ID:
- 1183765
- Report Number(s):
- 18034--Final_PublicRelease
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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