Application of Microscale Devices for Megawatt Scale Concentrating Solar Power Plants

Conference · Mon Mar 07 04:00:00 EST 2016

OSTI ID:1571295

Zada, Kyle R.; Drost, M. Kevin; Fronk, Brian M.

Concentrated solar power (CSP) plants have the potential to reduce the consumption of non-renewable resources and greenhouse gas emissions in electricity production. In CSP systems, a field of heliostats focuses solar radiation on a central receiver, which is ultimately transferred to thermal electrical power plant at high temperature. However, the maximum receiver surface fluxes are low (30–100 W cm−2) with high thermal losses, which has limited the market penetration of CSP systems. Recently, small (∼ 4 cm2), laminated micro-channel devices have shown potential to achieve concentrated surface fluxes over 100 W cm−2 using supercritical CO2 as the working fluid. The present study explores the feasibility of using these microscale devices as building blocks for a megawatt scale (250 MW thermal) open solar receiver. This allows for a modular design of the central receiver with non-standard shapes customized to the heliostat field. The results show that the microscale unit-cells have the potential to be scaled to megawatt applications while providing high heat flux and thermal efficiency. At the design incident flux and surface emissivity, a global receiver thermal efficiency of > 90% can be achieved.

• Research Organization: Oregon State University
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Solar Energy Technologies Office (EE-4S)
• DOE Contract Number: EE0007108
• OSTI ID: 1571295
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
Blocks (Building materials)
Concentrating solar power
Design
Electricity (Physics)
Emissions
Emissivity
Fluids
Flux (Metallurgy)
Heat flux
High temperature
Microchannels
Microscale devices
Shapes
Solar energy
Solar radiation
Supercritical carbon dioxide
Thermal efficiency