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Fractal steel texturing could solve the corrosive effect of higher temperature solar salts in tomorrow’s Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) How a novel fractal steel coating prevents corrosion in Gen3 CSP, described in Novel fractal-textured solar absorber surfaces for concentrated solar power published at Elsevier: Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells We recently caught up with …
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Solar even under grey skies 365 days a year: Compared to the cost of the Gen3 CSP plant itself, adding the thermochemical storage and the hydrogen production reactor barely increased plant costs, but added significantly more value by greatly expanding storage duration. Typically, simplicity equals low costs. But the creators of a multi-technology thermochemical energy …
Continue reading “Thermochemical energy storage to deliver Gen3 solar months later”
Compared to the cost of the Gen3 CSP plant itself, adding the thermochemical storage and the hydrogen production reactor barely increased plant costs, but added significantly more value by greatly expanding storage duration. Typically, simplicity equals low costs. But the creators of a multi-technology thermochemical energy storage system for Gen3 concentrating solar power (CSP) claim …
Continue reading “Thermochemical energy storage to deliver Gen3 solar months later”
Solar reactor used for the heat recovery test at ETH Zürich. IMAGE@A.Lidor Why heat-recovery for solar reactors matters In this solar technology, highly concentrated solar energy directly heats a solar reactor and drives a thermochemical process, using carbon dioxide and water as the raw materials to produce syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. …
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High-temperature molten salt degradation at over 620°C gets an oxygen fix that also solves tank corrosion as well The molten salt mixture deployed in today’s commercial CSP plants for thermal energy storage is liquid at 565°C and degrades at higher temperatures. Yet higher temperatures would increase thermal efficiency. So how can we develop a molten …
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From the paper Thermal energy storage (TES) with phase change materials (PCM) in solar power plants (CSP) Concept and plant performance in which Abengoa’s thermal storage expert Cristina Prieto proposed a cascaded thermocline Three years ago, Abengoa thermal energy storage engineer Cristina Prieto exchanged the relatively secretive world of commercial CSP for academia. Now, as …
Continue reading “Cascaded thermocline storage with metal wool gets test: HYBRIDplus”
The thermal storage tank leaked in the first commercial Tower CSP in the world. Here; the thermal storage tank at the 110 MW Crescent Dunes Tower CSP plant in Nevada. IMAGE@SolarReserve In Tower CSP, thermal storage had issues at first A thermal storage tank failure ended Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) development in the US. At …
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Nickel ceria (Ni-CeCO2) for solar syngas at just 700°C IMAGE@Kinetic investigation of solar chemical looping reforming of methane over Ni–CeO2 at low temperature Adding Nickel to Ceria can yield Solar Syngas at lower temperatures – at just 700°C Solar thermochemistry researchers at the University of Florida and Synhelion tried a new way to generate syngas, …
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IMAGE@Casati et al. A water-cooled hot solar window from A Solar Receiver Delivering Heat at 1500℃ and Above- Experimental Results – presentation. For solar thermal systems to make solar fuels or provide industrial heat at temperatures at 1500°C, various designs for high-temperature solar receivers are being innovated to capture and convert concentrated solar heat …
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A solar thermal energy storage breakthrough – a novel combination of latent and sensible heat in a single tank that avoids thermocline thickening has been tested successfully at the PROMES-CNRS solar thermal research laboratory Most industries currently burn fossil fuels for heat. But to supply heat directly from sunlight, research attention is turning to solar …
Continue reading “Successful PROMES-CNRS thermocline test of latent/sensible heat storage”