Techno-Economics of Central Tower Receiver Power Plants in India: Effect of Heat Transfer fluids/Thermal Storage Media
Abstract
Results of a preliminary attempt to study the effect of different fluids as heat transfer fluid (HTF) as well as thermal energy storage (TES) medium on the techno-economics of a 100 MW nominal capacity CTR based plant with the provision of 12.0 hours of thermal energy storage are presented. For this purpose, solar salt, KCl-MgCl₂, NaCl-KCl-MgCl₂ and liquid sodium have been considered. From the results obtained, it is observed that merely attaining higher temperatures for a heat transfer fluid or thermal storage media is not going to significantly affect the techno-economics of the CSP plant. The thermo-physical properties and cost of heat transfer/ thermal storage fluids have considerable effect on cost of thermal energy storage sub-system, parasitic requirements, as well as operational and maintenance requirements.