Advanced CFD&HT Numerical Modeling of Solar Tower Receivers

Advanced Solar Receivers

Even though more small cavity solar receivers have been designed, fabricated and tested in recent times, the perennial problem of low thermal efficiency has not gone away. Most solar receivers have not been as efficient as the analysis that went into their design predicted. Energy losses have been 5 to 50 percent greater than anticipated. Perhaps this should have been expected stnce little opti...

Solar Power Tower

In a molten-salt solar power tower, liquid salt at 290oC (554oF) is pumped from a ‘cold’ storage tank through the receiver where it is heated to 565oC (1,049oF) and then on to a ‘hot’ tank for storage. When power is needed from the plant, hot salt is pumped to a steam generating system that produces superheated steam for a conventional Rankinecycle turbine/generator system. From the steam gener...

The Optics of the Solar Tower Reflector

− The concept of the reflective solar tower is based on inverting the path of the solar rays originating from a heliostat field to a solar receiver that can be placed on the ground. This system is based on the property of a reflective quadric surface to reflect each ray oriented to one of its foci to its second focus. Two shapes of surfaces can be used: one is concave − the ellipsoid, and the o...

NUMERICAL MODELING OF CuInSe2 AN D CdTe SOLAR CELLS

Advances in concentrating solar power tower

The paper examines design and operating data of current concentrated solar power (CSP) 10 solar tower (ST) plants. The study includes CSP with or without boost by combustion of natural gas 11 (NG) and with or without thermal energy storage (TES). The study then reviews the novel trends to 12 produce better ratio of solar field power to electric power, better capacity factor, better matching of ...