System analysis of central receiver concepts with high temperature thermal energy storages: Receiver technologies and storage cycles

Abstract

Reducing the levelized cost of electricity for solar thermal electricity (STE) plants is the most important challenge of this technology. A bottleneck at state of the art STE plants is the heat storage medium (HSM) with its temperature limits. To replace the commonly used molten salt, particles like quartz sand or corundum, enabling temperatures up to 1000 °C, are proposed as new HSM. The temperature raise leads to economical challenges, which have to be analyzed more in detail. In this work two STE plant concepts based on particles as HSM are introduced and discussed to outline advantages and issues concerning this technology.