Tower Technology: High temperature looking for decrease the cost of energy; impact of surface treatment

Noelia Martinez Sanz

Tower Technology: High temperature looking for decrease the cost of energy; impact of surface treatment

Noelia Martinez Sanz

Abengoa Research, Madrid, Spain

: J Nucl Ene Sci Power Generat Technol

Abstract

The latest concentrated solar power (CSP) plants built around the world have used the tower technology, instead of parabolic trough, using molten salt or superheated steam as heat transfer fluid. This means, increasing the temperature, opens the technology to use more efficiency cycles. It is directly related to more profitable power plants and promoted the use of solar thermal energy. This type of technology has the solar receiver as a key element of the power plant. One of the challenges to have more efficient receivers is its high absorptivity surface. There are several options to coat the solar receiver but there is one paint (Pyromark) that is the most commonly employed. The authors study the bench marking of solar coating, after that, analyse that which are the options more suitable for the next power plants generation. The study considers different options of solar receiver cavity and external. To do the study, the receiver heat losses were modelled and simulated to obtain the receiver performance values, considering different coatings. The impact in the cost of energy will be analysed too, taking in to account the common indicators. Every single design point has to be considering to promote the use of CSP.