Design and Simulation of a New Concrete Thermal Storage Unit
Abstract
Solar Thermal Electricity (STE) is an important alternative to PV electricity production, due to the cost competitiveness in locations with high DNI as well as for the intrinsic value of having thermal storage which can give an important contribution to the energy mix in countries like Spain where STE has more than 2500MW installed capacity. In recent years, research has been performed, on alternative storage systems, to which features like modularity and validation of new thermal storage materials are important with the goal of achieving lower investment cost. Concrete storage has been studied in the past up to an operating temperature of 500oC [1] [2], and several prototypes were built and tested without reaching commercial plants. Nowadays, new design and new concrete mixes are under research in order to validate its usage up to 550oC [3]. Simulation results leading to this new design are presented.
Keywords
Energy storage, High temperature, Concrete mix, Solid material