Abstract:
Facing the challenges of energy crisis and climate change, solar-to-fuel is recognized as a promising approach to promote renewable energy as an alternative to fossil energy. We have proposed a solar-to-fuel system that adopts the spectral beam splitting method to couple photovoltaic and thermochemical conversions, enabling the simultaneous production of electricity and solar fuel from full-spectrum solar energy. The daily operating performances under real on-sun conditions are explored through calculations and experiments. During daily operation, the production of the solar fuel(syngas) is 7.79 m3 with a methanol consumption of 10.48 kg. The system achieves a maximum solar-to-electricity efficiency of 19.8 %. However, the test results indicate that the daily operational performance of the system is affected by fluctuating solar irradiance when operates under real on-sun conditions. A control strategy of the system operation is proposed by dynamically adjusting the methanol flow rates to match the fluctuating solar irradiance. The daily average solar-to-electric efficiency of the system can increase from 19.67 % to 19.72 % with the methanol consumption decreasing from 16.96 kg to 15.61 kg under the operating mode of methanol flow rate controlling. Theoretical analysis indicates that the dynamical control of the methanol feed can improve the daily operation performances of the photovoltaic-thermochemical (PV-TC) hybrid system and reduce the methanol operation consumption.
Zhu, T., Liu, B., Feng, H., Zhao, Y., Liu, D., & Li, Q. (2025). Daily operation and regulation of a photovoltaic-thermochemical hybrid solar system for full-spectrum solar fuel production. Applied Thermal Engineering, 264, 125508. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2025.125508
