Abstract
Particle receivers are one of the candidates for the next generation of CSP plants, whose goal is to reduce the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) to 0.05 $/kWh. This paper presents a techno-economic analysis to study if a CSP system with free-falling particle receiver can achieve this goal. The plant analyzed integrates two ground-based bins to store the excess energy and a supercritical CO2 cycle to generate electricity. The model used for the analysis presents several upgrades to previous particle systems models in order to increase its fidelity, accuracy, and representativeness of an actual system. The main upgrades are the addition of off-design conditions during the annual simulations in all the components and an improved receiver model validated against CFD simulations. The size of the main components is optimized to obtain the system configuration with minimum LCOE. The results show that particle CSP systems can reduce the LCOE to 0.056 $/kWh if the configuration is composed of 1.61 × 106 m2 of heliostats, a 250 m high tower with a 537 m2 falling particle curtain, and 16 h thermal energy storage.
Highlights
The goal of the generation of concentrating solar power (CSP) plants is to produce electricity at 0.05 $/kWh [1]
Solar multiple and hours of storage are included in the analysis to achieve the minimum levelized cost of electricity (LCOE)
The resulting LCOE depends on the particles loss during the system operation, which is analyzed at the end of the section
Summary
The goal of the generation of concentrating solar power (CSP) plants is to produce electricity at 0.05 $/kWh [1]. Buck et al [14] presented in 2018 a model of multi-tower CSP systems with centrifugal particle receiver to analyze the LCOE trends under different conditions. Albrecht et al [15] presented in 2019 a model in Engineering Equation Solver (EES) [16] to simulate the annual energy production of commercial scale CSP systems with free-falling particle receivers and estimate the LCOE. The results obtained with this model indicated that particle CSP systems could produce electricity below 0.06 $/kWh. The cost models of the new components were collected from previous investigations, but several improvements were needed in the model to obtain more accurate and representative results. The new model is used to carry out a techno-economic optimization of CSP systems with free-falling particle receivers.
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