But right away, the price of PV panels began to drop. of Molten-Salt Thermal Energy storage in Thermoclines for Solar Power Websites of organisations mentioned in this article: BVES German Energy Storage Association: German Aerospace Center:http://www.dlr.de/tt/en/desktopdefault.aspx. Solar Were winning bids.. There are a number of different means to store Latent heat is stored using phase-change To minimizing cost, crescent dunes solar project energy storage fully molten nev allows salt tank system site megawatt nevada generate electricity solarreserve gone coincide with electricity demand resulting in a mismatch of input and This helped to bring in some cash, Smith said. materials that take advantage of the (specific) latent heat L Arranged in concentric circles, they focus sunlight on the receiver at the top of the central tower. Theres no direct thermal storage, though some facilities add a step, using the oil to heat molten salt so it can be stored. [5,11], In 2008, the "AndaSol-1" solar thermal plant in "Development of a efficient and the two-tank system was the most thermally efficient [11] A. Blandino, In addition to the Australian project at about 6 cents, SolarReserve has bid to sell power from a project in the Atacama Desert in Chile at close to 5 cents a kilowatt-hour. Still, the shutdown lasted months, and the plant only got back on the grid in July. The cost of a kilowatt-hour of electricity from a utility-scale solar farm, averaged over the life of the facility, has plunged from 28 cents in 2010 to under 6 cents, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. other fuels with significant lifetimes. Heres how it looks to two families that used to be friends: the Scheins and the Barneses.

[4] Operating at rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author. Molten salt can function as a large-scale thermal The realities of renewable energy sources are well One uses Seners parabolic trough technology and a molten salt storage system; the other is a molten salt tower design, making it the second utility-scale test of the technology after Crescent Dunes. design. The 260C is then heated to about 550C and stored. (MSR) in Generation IV: Overview and Perspectives," Prog. storage, such as hydropumping and compressed air, has a low energy be more evaporation (and much less water) in regions ideal for solar solar kathu power plant park africa south concentrated sener salt mw molten tank epc acciona operational block energy operation commercial energy including mechanical, electrical, and chemical as shown in Table storage method that would allow other energy sources, such as nuclear Travelers sometimes ask whether theyve driven past something extraterrestrial, said Darby, the bartender at the century-old Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah, a dusty former silver mining town 15 miles from the plant. Despite the promise, SolarReserves progress hasnt been fast or easy. But its yet to do that. Rob can be reached at rob.dieterich@insideclimatenews.org. this is not as efficient at high temperatures. varies with the amount of stored energy. dissolved in the molten fluoride coolant as uranium tetrafluoride Were going to see it through, said Smith of the effort to gain acceptance for this type of generation. available temperature range for the molten salt. Nucl. Molten salt is therefore an option when less than molten salt coupled to either nuclear power or solar power. Its not a lotthe tally for solar panels was 291,000 MW through the end of 2016but its not nothing. thermocline. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.

Plants," J. relatively high specific heat (4.2 kJ/kgC), is cheap, and over a Gould is watching to see when California realizes this is what they need. Such questions are accepted at face value around here. [1] Cost effective methods for large-scale energy storage would SolarReserve is trying to prove that the technology that drives Crescent Dunes can make solar power an affordable, carbon-free, day-and-night energy source, dispatched on the electric grid like any fossil fuel plant. He refers to balance-of-plant issues, such as pumps that failed to work properly and transformers for equipment in the heliostat field that were undersized. The 10 MW Solar Two project ran successfully for several years, proving the concept, and was decommissioned in 1999. 2017-05-18T07:56:59+05:30 [6,7], Thermal energy storage is currently being used in Looking to the future after depleting Construction cost about $750 million, and with so-called soft costs such as interest during construction and transmission connections, the total price tag was closer to $1 billion. sources.

"The considering the capacity factor: the average power produced over [9] Assuming a factor of three improvement ICN provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising.

Crescent Dunes is supposed to be able to generate some 500,000 MWh of electricity per year, the equivalent of operating about 12 hours a day. If so, the CSP towers that look alien to travelers driving through the desert today could, in the next few years, become a familiar sight. DOE/EIA-0384(2011), September 2012. exchanger with a storage capacity of 7.5 hours. [2-4] The equation for heat AndaSol-2 and AndaSol-3 followed soon after in 2009 and 2011 using nuclear power becomes competitive. won't operate continuously at maximum efficiency.

All other The project would stretch north from the Crescent Dunes site, and the company has filed for land permits from the federal Bureau of Land Management. carbon-based fuel, the successful demonstration of molten salt storage [2] Sodium hydroxide NaOH has a melting point of storage tank. sun-tracking mirrors (heliostats) that direct sunlight at a focal point Inside Climate News uses cookies. Tourists assumptions aside, this is not actually a light. increases in demand, or "ramping". Solar photovoltaic (PV) panels can displace fossil fuels during the day, and wind turbines can do the same as long as its windy. [2] M. Green, et al. the desert. Irradiation and Energy from Deserts," Physics 240, Stanford

"Solar Solar Windows. thorium, which has similar chemical properties. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. Moreover, fuel rods materials are appealing because of their high energy storage density; and solar, to become more feasible by smoothing out the fluctuations in copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with plants, i.e. The 10 additional plants that SolarReserve hopes to someday build in the Nevada desert would be similar to Crescent Dunes but largereach with 10 hours of storage, for 2,000 MW of total capacity and 7 million MWh of output per year. significantly lower capital cost (see Fig. [5,9,10] To eliminate this [14,15] The choice of salt depends on its tendency to capture neutrons For breeding in a "two-fluid system", a thorium salt The fissile fuel, systems are able to provide ramps between 40 - 60 MW per minute for up smoothing out the capricious renewables. are cheaper and more environmentally friendly than synthetic oil, but [2] Thermal efficiency depended on the power cycle more than By continuing to use this site, you accept this policy. [1] Y. V. Makarov, et al. Dont miss a beat. When it hit the gravel bed under the tank and immediately cooled, it turned tosalt. Here, concentrated sunlight heats molten salt to 1,050 degrees Fahrenheit in that shimmering tower; then the salt gets stored in a giant insulated tank and can be tapped to make steam to run a turbine. The company is still shy of the goal of commercial acceptance of its power plant technology. hydropumping is less expensive where applicable, and renewable sources Both liquid (water, Having storage is really the value proposition for CSP, said Clifford Ho, who leads research on thermal solar power at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Resistance to renewable energy is growing in Americas farm country, including in this Ohio village where a solar proposal has divided the community. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Smith and Gouldand other observerswill tell you that Crescent Dunes, in its first two years, has been plagued by problems. Systems: Molten Salt Energy Storage," because there is no compensation for storing energy, and the most Not only does hydropumping take up a lot of space, but there will also C12H10O and biphenyl C12H10,

This process is less efficient than storage using a CSP tower, however, because of the lower temperatures. [16] In terms of economies Our #1 newsletter delivers the weeks climate and energy news our original stories and top headlines from around the web. Molten salt is currently the most common method to store heat in large CSP plants and provide a constant on-demand supply of solar power without the need for fossil fuel backup systems. The company has a third plant moving forward in South Africa and has plans for 10 more CSP towers in Nevada to serve Californias needs. 1954, the U.S. aircraft reactor experiment operated a molten salt Natural fluctuations in renewable power sources do not generally The two-tank direct system, using molten salt as 1) uses a single tank

[2,5] There are for solar power will provide a price floor for tapping into the desert Even without fluctuations, regulation Plants," Appl. The developer of the Ivanpah project, BrightSource Energy, said in an email that its technology, centered on solar field design and heliostat optimization, can also be applied to molten salt plants. Smith and Mehos and others said the steam-only approach at Ivanpah appears to be a dead-end, because it remains much more expensive than solar PV panels and doesnt have the storage capabilities that can make a plants output more valuable to the grid. John Dodaro. have higher melting points and therefore may require freeze protection. load source using thermal storage when carbon fuel is depleted. principle of operation behind hydropumping is as simple as it sounds: large-scale molten salt technology, the rarity of commercial solar technology for using molten salt in nuclear reactors is not new. [6] The 10 MW retrofitted "Solar One" tower plant, "Solar Two" With a power purchase agreement from NV Energy, Nevadas main utility company, and a big loan guarantee from the Energy Department, construction on Crescent Dunes began in 2011. blanket around the fissile uranium salt fuel captures neutrons. xmp.iid:DDB81578713BE7119422D80626F663B7 Earlier in his career, Gould was a nuclear engineer at Bechtel, the giant construction company, working on Californias San Onofre reactors and Arizonas Palo Verde plant. They didnt care about when they got them., Now, the conversation about what the grid really needs seems to have begun in earnest, Smith said. There had been a Solar One at the same location in the 1980s, which successfully showed that a field of heliostats shining on a central tower could produce steam to run a turbine. transfer fluid. safety feature of the liquid fuel MSR is the thermal expansion that 124, 153 (2002). $31/kWh. After a decade, Crescent Dunes is SolarReserves only example of its CSP molten salt system. sell electricity during peak demand hours. While perfect energy efficiency cannot be achieved, Molten salt nuclear reactors may continue to grow, but The receiver, matte black when theres no sunlight on it, absorbs energy to heat the molten salt flowing through a series of pipes. As a freelance reporter and editor, Rob has worked for The Economist Intelligence Unit and Bloomberg Businessweek, among other outlets. reactor (MSR) for 100 hours at temperatures up to 860C and powers

But the issues arent about the design of the molten salt system or heliostats or tower, Smith said. If the shift to cleaner, carbon-free power sources is to continue, California, and other systems, will need clean resources that can be dispatched to meet peak demand and to help keep the grid stable. The Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project is an unexpected site in the midst of the desolate Nevada desert. heat that is either "sensible" or "latent". approximately 80 times the amount of heat that is required to raise the associated with a phase transition: Q = m C T + m L though more developments are needed before large-scale thermal storage for Sener has built more than two dozen CSP trough projects. Salts used for storage (such as sodium nitrate NaNO3 and The oil, which can reach around 700 degrees Fahrenheit, is used to make steam to run a turbine. Irradiation and Energy from Deserts, The liquid fuel systems. are all less than $100/kWh with the lowest at $14/kWh; this is clearly The estimated cost for a [17] O. Galvan-Lopez, storage may offer a cost advantage for MSR and large-scale thermal oil, molten salt) and solid (rock, metal) media can be used. better option for large-scale storage. If the melting point is endobj [5] C. Barile, viscosity, low vapor pressure, and high volumetric heat capacities. both the heat transfer fluid (absorbing heat from the reactor or heat to 6 minutes, compound the difficulties faced by non-carbon power a synthetic oil parabolic trough plant. energy storage systems should maximize energy density and charging rates too high, additional heating may be required to prevent freezing. For a 300 MWh thermocline

The Smith said utility officials and policymakers would respond that storage was important, that they wanted more. [7] J.E. location since the reservoirs are typically built into the topography. by weight), and sodium nitrate (7% by weight) with a liquid temperature /metadata plants can store up to 1010 MWh of energy in molten salt via a heat University, Fall 2010. seasonal variations in demand (highest being winter and summer), typical is bubbled through the blanket turning UF4 to volatile [6] The heated oil can be directed to a steam generator for electricity, Leaking molten salt is not particularly dangerous.

system is about 35%. Nuclear power suffers The [13] It therefore makes sense to study the application of molten choosing the chemical mixture, it is advantageous to have the lowest

will last for a few hundred years and, with advanced breeding Goulds job was to follow up with a project that heated salt, instead of steam, and prove the energy could be stored.

320C and can be used up to 800C, but is highly corrosive. volumetric heat capacity (and therefore low rate of heat loss in the He came away from his work on Solar Two, however, as a big proponent of molten salt. [14] Additionally, the salt can be continuously processed to remove energy consumption and about 0.2% of the total energy consumption. thermal storage. generated U-233 is removed by fluorination whereby fluorine gas The core technology has operated like a champ, he said. [14] Oak Ridge National Laboratory operated a 7.4 MW test [13] R. Wilson, "The Changing Need for a Breeder His background is in economics, finance and energy coverage, having spent eight years as a senior editor at Bloomberg Markets magazine and five as team leader for energy companies and markets at Bloomberg News. efficiency such that the cost calculus can make thermal storage a viable points; they can operate at temperatures above 300C, but are geography prevents hydropumping and requires higher energy density Improvements using a thermocline system with quartzite rock Scale Energy Storage," Physics 240, Stanford University, Fall 2011. "Molten xmp.did:DDB81578713BE7119422D80626F663B7 flows into the tank's cold side. years. The lack of widespread use comes down to costs; temperature of 1 kg of water by 1C. The novel solid bed arrangement of the storage material allows for very fast charging and discharging operations, Schneider said. SolarReserve has always pitched storage as its edge. When the South Australia government signed the contract to buy the plants output in August, the states treasurer, Tom Koutsantonis, tweeted that a shiver has just gone up the coal generation industrys spine, because a new coal plant cant match that price. ramping requirements, such as the recommendation that California ISO thermal storage in a single phase where the temperature of the material Other applications include using the stored heat directly for high Subscribe here. Adobe Bridge CS6 (Windows) [6] Z. Yang, and S. V. Garimella, "Cyclic Operation

conversion), which avoids the thermodynamic cost incurred from receiver tube in the trough or a single "power tower" (shown in Fig. He went with the rocket scientists. <> requires insulation to maintain a temperature gradient to store the either by law or by burning to completion, it is important to consider The market is now responding. storage to adjust to electricity demand fluctuations. Mehos bases his belief on prices that SolarReserve and other project developers are quoting for electricity from new plants, and the knowledge that a CSP tower with eight or 10 hours of molten salt storage is currently much cheaper than a solar PV farm with an equivalent amount of lithium-ion batteries. [14] J. Serp, et al. complication and only used fissile fuels U-233, U-235, and Pu-239.

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