HYBRIDplus proposes a novel CSP plant concept with an electrified Phase Change Material (PCM) Thermal Energy Storage (TES) system in cascade configuration coupled with a high temperature supercritical CO2 power cycle for the next generation of hybrid CSP plants.
The backbone of the project is the innovative TES that integrate recycled metal wools in its core to enhance the thermal conductivity of the PCM. To electrify this new TES, heaters are embedded into the PCM, providing power-to-heat and hybridization capabilities to the CSP plant. The cascade configuration highly increases the efficiency of the system taking full advantage of both, the latent and sensible heat, which highly reduces the footprint of the storage system. The HYBRIDplus solution provides a high degree of dispatchability at low cost and with a very low environmental burden, minimizing the water consumption and reducing the life cycle impact.
Thanks to its innovative TES, able to reach temperatures up to 610 °C, it can easily integrate a high-efficient sCO2 power cycle without requiring major changes to the State-of-the-Art CSP technology, providing high efficiencies, and allowing reductions of the LCoE up to 10%. At the same time, due to the internally electrified storage system, it can be hybridized with renewable energy sources maximizing the dispatchability of the CSP plant while allowing higher penetrations of RES in the grid and providing flexibility services. This CSP concept can reduce the storage specific CAPEX down to 12 €/kWht.
The higher energy density of the PCM storage, the higher efficiency of the proposed plant and the lowered water requirements for the sCO2 power cycles allows the HYBRIDplus solution to reduce the LCA impact 10% with respect to the State-of-the-art, with an expected final carbon footprint below 9.8 gCO2 eq/kWh.
