Concepts for Cost Reduction in CSP Power Plants

Kurzfassung

In solar thermal power plants concentrating collectors are used to provide the high-temperature heat for the power plant. There are a number of different concepts available in which the heat transfer fluid is either directly used in the power plant cycle (e.g. water vapor), or alternatively a secondary cycle with a different fluid (e.g. thermal oil) is used to collect the solar energy. To date, especially parabolic trough systems that use synthetic thermal oil as heat transfer medium are the dominant technology in the market. However alternative approaches that use other concentrator geometries (like central receiver tower power plants) and /or alternative heat transfer fluids are increasingly showing up. The lecture introduces two different concepts that use molten salt as heat transfer as well as storage medium. Technological strengths and weaknesses as well as expectations with respect to efficiency and cost are discussed.