Impact of Temperature and Optical Error on the Combined Optical and Thermal Efficiency of Solar Tower Systems for Industrial Process Heat
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52825/solarpaces.v2i.866Keywords:
Solar Thermal Tower Systems, Technoeconomic Analysis, Industrial Process HeatAbstract
Concentrating solar thermal (CST) power towers can provide high flux concentrations at commercial scale. As a result, CST towers exhibit potential for high-temperature solar industrial process heat (SIPH) applications. However, at higher operating temperatures, thermal radiation losses can be significant. This study explores the trade-off between thermal and optical losses for SIPH applications using a collection of three case studies at operating temperatures that range from 900-1,550 °C. We assume blackbody radiation to represent the thermal losses at the receiver and we use ray tracing to estimate the optical losses. The results show the impact of process temperature on the maximum attainable system efficiency, as well as the higher flux concentration requirements as the temperature increases.
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Copyright (c) 2024 Alexander Zolan, Chad Augustine, Evan Westphal, Kenneth Armijo, Ye Wang, John Pye
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Accepted 2024-04-23
Published 2024-07-24
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Solar Energy Technologies Office
Grant numbers 38896
