Towards Competitive, Reliable, Safe and Sustainable Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Plants

Project Information

TOPCSP

Grant agreement ID: 101072537

DOI

10.3030/101072537

EC signature date 6 July 2022

Start date 1 October 2022

End date 28 February 2027

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 2 568 154,81

Coordinated by

UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III DE MADRID
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TOPCSP (Towards Competitive, Reliable, Safe and Sustainable Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Plants)

Reporting period: 2022-10-01 to 2024-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

TOPCSP is a research and training project in which ten doctoral candidates are trained in concentrated solar energy while also developing innovative technologies. The overall research objective of the project is to improve the design of the different systems of a CSP plant to increase its cost-competitiveness, reliability, environmental profile, and operational safety.
The project's scientific activity is divided into 10 separate tasks that are structured into the three work packages. Each task corresponds to the individual research project of each doctoral candidate. Figure 1 depicts a schematic of the structure of the research tasks listed below:

WP1. Cost reduction and improved reliability of commercial CSP plants
• T1.1: Universal flux density measurement system for large-scale external and cavity receivers with high-performance image processing.
• T1.2: Turbulent two-phase flows in direct steam generation (DSG) solar receiver.
• T1.3: Improved steam cycle layouts to improve flexibility and reduce the cost of the CSP plant power block.

WP2. Next generation of CSP plants working with alternative fluids
• T2.1: New liquid HTFs for the next generation of CSP plants.
• T2.2: Supercritical CO2 cycles for the next generation of CSP plants.
• T2.3: Design, sizing, and analysis of molten salt heating systems as energy reservoirs.
• T2.4: Concentrated solar system for solar fuel production.

WP3. New scientific approaches and computational tools to generate disruptive innovation in CSP technologies
• T3.1 (DC8-CyI): Generative design of solar tower receivers.
• T3.2 (DC9-VM): Coupled optimization of the thermal-hydraulic design of the solar field and receiver.
• T3.3 (DC10-UC3M): Full economic and environmental analysis (LCA) of CSP plants.

TOPCSP can contribute to CSP development, relaunching innovation in the technology in Europe and the training of qualified personnel.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In this project, ten doctoral candidates are being trained and developing a doctoral thesis in the field of CSP. The training programme includes secondment in academic institutions and the industry, training courses in research and transferable skills, participation in scientific conferences and coordination meetings. The work performed in the different tasks includes:

• Implementation of digital twin of a solar tower with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) correction tool for an optimized flux density measuring technique.
• Development of models of the power block to study novel layouts that enhance its flexibility.
• Numerical simulations validated with experiments of the two-phase water steam flows that mimic the receiver in the eLLO power plant.
• Experimental setup to measure liquid receivers’ variables (temperature, deformation and thermal stress) and assessment of the materials that can be used in high temperature molten salt systems.
• Experimental assessment of new dopants for the working fluids of supercritical CO2 (sCO2) cycles, development of a model of a CSP plant to study the impact of different CO2 mixtures and the design of the heat exchangers.
• The optimization of a new design of an electrical heater for molten salt and of a novel latent thermal energy storage system (LHTES).
• The optimization of compound parabolic concentrators for thermochemical hydrogen production.
• Development of a code to optimize the solar field layout and the aiming strategy, the receiver design and an algorithm to conduct Reduced-Order-Models of high dimensional simulation data.
• Creation of an AI-driven workflow able to design and geometrically optimize central receiver systems.
• The development of an environmental analysis of a full CSP plant.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The main innovative results being achieved in the project are:
• A digital twin with an AI-correction tool for developing a flux density measurement system for large-scale solar receivers.
• A numerical model validated with experiments for predicting steam production and temperature gradient in horizontal steam receivers built on sloped terrain.
• Promising layouts for increasing the flexibility of the power block of CSP plants and novel key performance indicators to evaluate the effect of the flexibility improvements.
• Inverse heat transfer code for solar receivers of the tower type validated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations.
• Several new dopants for working fluids for supercritical CO2 cycles and the design of the heat exchangers in sCO2 cycles.
• A novel design for molten salt electrical heater that reduces hot spots.
• Optimized solar receiver layouts for hydrogen production, increasing efficiency while lowering costs.
• A new state-of-the-art optimization workflow for geometrical optimization of CSP components integrating AI-algorithms, Generative Design approaches and Monte-Carlo ray-tracing.
• A code to optimize the solar field layout and the aiming strategy for a central cavity receiver.
• The environmental analysis of a full CSP plant including a comparative analysis of the environmental impacts of using wet versus dry condensation systems.

The potential impacts of the projects are:
• Contribution to the training of qualified CSP researchers.
• Increased CSP deployment and increasing renewable energy shares in the electricity mix.
• Novel tools that enhance the monitoring of CSP facilities, decreasing failures to augment energy production.

The key elements that are required to ensure success in increasing the maturity of the enumerated innovations are:
• Increasing collaboration with companies in the CSP industry to accelerate the application of the project's innovations in commercial facilities.
• Public support for investment in the construction of new CSP plants so that the developed innovation can be industrialized.
• A supportive regulatory framework that encourages power plants relying on thermal storage systems to improve system dispatchability, reducing the need for fossil fuel backups.

Figure 1. Structure of the tasks of TOPCSP