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3D-printed vermiculite and alumina samples. IMAGE © Thermal energy storage behaviour of 3D ceramic:molten salt structures under real concentrated solar radiation. Researchers collaborating between ICV-CSIC in Spain and at the Odeillo solar furnace in France have devised a novel way to maximize thermal energy storage in Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants. They wanted to encapsulate …
Continue reading “3D-printed ceramics tested to maximize thermal energy storage in molten salts ”
Silica sand mining – “Expanding the amount of energy that can be stored in sand is as simple as adding more sand” IMAGE © Homerun Resources which is working with NREL on using its silica sand for thermal energy storage “Expanding the amount of energy that can be stored in sand is as simple as …
Continue reading “ARPA-E-winning thermal energy storage in sand wins commercial interest”
Work on the G3P3 particle receiver system at Sandia National Laboratories IMAGE © Sandia National Laboratories In 2018, three years after the completion of the second of two utility-scale tower-type Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants in the US, the Department of Energy (DOE) held a competition to decide the funding direction for the next generation …
Continue reading “Sandia’s Gen-3 particle-based CSP demo to debut this fall”
Heliostats in the solar field concentrate sunlight up to the receiver atop the tower in Tower CSP, to heat molten salts. All twenty-four Tower CSP plants currently operating or under construction in China’s 1 GW renewable energy parks utilize molten salts to transfer the solar heat. Nearly all the Tower-type Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants …
Continue reading “Optimizing the safety factor in high temperature solar absorbers”
In concentrated solar power (CSP), how well the working fluid transfers heat through a receiver can make or break system efficiency. For solar-heated thermochemistry, solar receivers need to operate at very high temperatures, up to 1400°C. Gases like air are cheap, nontoxic, and have no temperature limitations, so researchers are working on gas-based solar receivers …
Continue reading “Finding an ideal channel geometry inside compact flow gas receivers”
Part of the parabolic trough section of the NOOR I CSP project in Morocco ©MASEN A groundbreaking new AI simulation tool that dramatically improves power plant operations for parabolic Trough-type Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants has been created by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Michael Wagner, who helped develop the widely used System Advisor Model …
Continue reading “New neural network tool speeds up O&M for Trough CSP”
Maersk is leading the push to green methanol for shipping. Vast Energy’s South Australia Solar Fuels (SASF) could be a provider Methanol has the lowest emissions of all the hydrocarbons. Using concentrated solar thermal energy to heat the thermochemistry to make it (instead of burning a fossil fuel to supply heat) and sourcing the input …
Continue reading “Vast Energy advances world’s-first solar-powered green methanol demo”
In concentrated solar tower plants, hundreds of heliostats mirror reflected sunlight up to a central receiver. But aiming these mirrors presents a dilemma: point them all at the center, and risk damaging the receiver with intense heat, or risk losing valuable energy with a more “fuzzy” focus. IMAGE ©DLR A new study from researchers at …
Continue reading “New AI perfects heliostat aim to boost solar tower power”
Members of the two teams, at DLR’s Institute of Future Fuels, and at the industry partner Grillo that will trial the electrolysis step A sulphur-based method for making green hydrogen using a solar hybrid technique that combines concentrated solar heat and electrically driven electrolysis has proven to be more efficient than today’s state-of-the-art electrolysis-only …
Continue reading “Solar hydrogen from sulphuric acid recycling to get an industry trial”
A new trigeneration study just published at Renewable Energy is a collaboration between Fatih Yilmaz from Isparta University of Applied Sciences in Turkiye, and Basharat Jamil from Spain’s IMDEA Energy Institute in Madrid. They have proposed a concept in which three power cycles would be deployed in sequence to supply electricity, heating, and freshwater generation …
Continue reading “A new trigeneration study builds on recaptured waste heat”