Feasibility study of solar-nuclear hybrid system for distributed power source

Abstract

To supply electricity for islands or remote regions, conventional energy sources relying on frequent refueling face issues with high fuel transportation cost and reliability. The Concentrating Solar Power (CSP), which has relatively high efficiency and low installation and operation cost compared to other solar technology, is considered for this purpose in this study. A CSP is mainly connected to Thermal Energy Storage (TES) to be more flexible, and the related technology has high maturity, but TES cannot completely resolve intermittency issue. Therefore, a base energy source suitable for an island or remote region to support CSP is required. A Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) concept by combining a supercritical CO2 power cycle and a small long-life reactor core is utilized to supplement CSP in this study. An MMR is designed to be easily transported via road system while it can produce power over 20 years without refueling. The solar-nuclear hybrid system is expected to solve the intermittency problem of CSP while maintaining high capacity factor of the MMR. This study first presents a concept of a solar-nuclear hybrid system that combines MMR, CSP, and TES altogether for the distributed power source application considering the electricity demand of the region to be installed. The proposed hybrid system is further evaluated in terms of capacity factor and electricity demand fulfillment ratio for a hypothetical microgrid to demonstrate the technical feasibility of the proposed system.