Jülich Solar Power Tower – System Behavior During Downtime

Abstract

At the Jülich Solar Power Tower, two new shut-off dampers have been installed in the hot air piping system in order to reduce thermal losses during downtime of the plant. The thermodynamic behavior of the thermal energy storage and the steam boiler has been investigated with respect to heat losses after shut-down of the plant. Also, the change of temperature and the pressure drop at both shut-off dampers during downtime has been analyzed. Results show that for the storage, a reduction of thermal losses can be achieved by closing the damper overnight. Regarding the steam boiler, no improvements on heat losses were observed. If only two of the four storage chambers have been charged during operation, heat transfer between the chambers is observed after shut-down. It is concluded that natural convection is not the main source of thermal overnight losses, however, it can be lowered thanks to the dampers . Heat conduction and convectional heat transfer at the surfaces also contribute to the decrease of thermal energy, which can be lowered by thicker insulation layers in the future.