Solar Lab Facility

High-flux solar component design and testing

Wujun Wang

High-flux components form the central element of high-efficiency solar power plants and are often the life-limiting component in these facilities. In order to investigate the behaviour of these components and proposed optimised designs, the CSP group at KTH operates a high-flux solar simulator, capable of recreating in a controlled manner the irradiation conditions under which these components must operate. Complementary activities include ray-tracing simulation for the optical design of concentrator components and multi-physics simulation of high-temperature solar receivers for performance optimisation.

Techno-economic analysis and market studies

Rafael Guédez, Salvatore Guccione

The economic and commercial viability of solar power systems depends not only on their technical performance, but also on the investment, operation and maintenance costs. In order to investigate the economics of different solar power plant concepts and proposed cost-optimised designs, the CSP group at KTH has developed sophisticated techno-economic and electricity market analysis tools.

More about this research topic.... (pdf 594 kB)

Thermal Energy Storage Integration Strategies

Rafael Guédez

Depending upon their configuration, solar thermal power plants can fulfil very different market roles. The IEA Solar Technology Roadmap identifies a number of key roles for solar thermal power plants. A first possible role is the provision of reliable and dispatchable baseload and mid-merit power in a future high-renewable penetration market where CSP can form the back-bone of the electricity grid. Secondly, the provision of rapid-response peaking power to compensate for fluctuations in other, non-dispatchable, renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar photovoltaics. Thereafter, different sizes and operation strategies will be adopted for the thermal energy storage depending whether on if its objective is to provide spinning reserve (or frequency response) or instead increase or shift the hours of production from the power plant.

Moreover, concerning power production, depending upon the market role that the solar power plant is designed to fill, the thermal energy storage system can also be designed in different ways. With a given size of solar collector field (and thus a fixed solar energy input and electricity output for system over a 24 hour period), the relative size of the storage tank and power block can be changed, to supply different types of electricity services. In general, three distinct roles can be distinguished (based on those recommended by the IEA): baseload production, load shifting and peak power production.

By use of the DYESOPT and EDGESIM in-house tools, both specific power plant design considering storage component, and market role of the solar power plant can be analyzed and combined to best optimize the storage design and operating strategy in order to increase the economic viability of the solar power plant.