Operation and control of concentrated solar power system integrated with thermal energy storage system

Abstract

This research aims to study the operability and control stucture of small-scale concentrated solar power (CSP) system integrated with an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and two different types of thermal energy storage (TES) systems: two tank and packed bed TES. The simulation was performed using a commercial steady-state simulator, PRO/II, to determine optimal operating conditions targeting at thermal efficeincy of CSP-ORC system. The solar field requires area around 75 m2 to produce energy of 18 kWh which is above an average value power comsumption in residential section. The highest thermal efficiency of 7.05% is achieved. A commercial dynamic simulator, Dynsim, is used to perform dynamic simulation in order to investigate performance of the entire processes. A modified packed bed TES is introduced for simplicity in control structure. The overall efficiency of the process is used as performance index. The index is 5.4% for two tank TES as the heat loss is neglected. In case of packed bed TES, the maximum performance index of 4.0% was achieved, hence significantly lower than two tank TES.