General Coordination: Esther Rojas, CIEMAT, Spain
If you are willing to participate in any of the following Activity Lines, do not hesitate to get in contact with the corresponding coordinator of the activity or with Esther Rojas (general coordinator)
Objective
Promoting collaboration on Thermal Energy Storage (TES) to improve its reliability, integration on CSP plants and to develop a common language.
Current Activity Lines
(updated December’24)
TES tanks Issues
Coordinator: C. Zang, IEECAS, China
Motivation: Collaborating to look for a reliable operation of commercial thermal storage systems for central receiver CSP plants.
Current Status: The following four activities have been defined and collaborators are working on them:
1) Identification of tank failures and development of corresponding technological solutions
2) Guidelines for molten salt storage tanks
3) Methods of lifetime prediction
4) Monitoring system and method to ensure safe operation.
Carnot Batteries
Coordinator: D. Alfani, Politécnico de Milano, Italy
Motivation: Studying the potential role of Carnot Batteries integrated in CSP systems and support their development.
Current Status: The following five activities have been defined and collaborators are working on them:
1) In-depth Literature Review and Technology Assessment.
2) Market Analysis, Regulatory and Policy Framework, and Stakeholder Engagement
3) Modelling and Simulation
4) Technical Feasibility Study
5) Knowledge Sharing and Dissemination
Structural materials and coatings
Coordinators: C. Barreneche, Barcelona University, Spain, and A. G. Fernández, Vasque Country University, Spain
Motivation: Corrosion of structural materials in contact with molten salts is still one of the main drawbacks in CSP storage block. The conditions in this industry are such that particularly localized type of corrosion attack is often favoured; occurring in small local areas, and being difficult to detect before leaks.
Current Status: The following four activities have been defined and collaborators are working on them:
1) Corrosion evaluation guidelines for molten salts in CSP plants
2) Selection of promising alloys to be applied as structural materials in high-temperature molten salts
3) Revision of corrosion evaluation techniques and procedures
4) Material coating composition and deposition techniques
Molten Salts Technology
Coordinator: F. J. Pérez, Complutense University, Spain
Motivation: Next generation of molten salt thermal energy storage systems are expected to work at higher temperatures than the current ones.
Current Status: The following seven activities have been defined and collaborators are working on them:
1) Review of current and past CSP/TES/HTF projects related with molten salts
2) New molten salts formulations
3) (Continuation of) testing of components in solar salt, including compilation of previous results for components, identifying research/study gaps
4) Predictive maintenance – corrosion monitoring
5) LCA analysis of new molten salts and components/new components
6) Energy assessment, which includes modelling the energy efficiency, heat transfer, LCOE, etc.
7) Dissemination, Knowledge Transfer and Training Schools
Survey of R&D Activities on Thermal Storage Systems
Coordinator: R. Bayón, CIEMAT, Spain
Motivation: Promoting current research activities on TES by creating a database containing information of R&D activities in thermal storage developed by the participants
Current Status: Survey of current participants updated 9 2024
Previous Activity Lines
Characterization of Specific Equipment for Commercial TES
Coordinator: M. Rodriguez, CIEMAT, Spain
Motivation: Components reliability is not proved before installing them at plants. In commercial plants if one of these components presents a malfunction, it will just be repaired (often by component replacement)
Main Achievements:
– Identification of critical equipment and related problems (open to new problems that could appear in commercial plants)
– Definition of tests.
– Tests on valves, flanges, flowmeters, heating elements, pressure sensors and flexible joints.
– MOSAICO project, funded by SolarPACES TCP and coordinated by M. Rodriguez (CIEMAT) to disseminate the main results of the activity line and those of the SFERA III project, in the workshop entitled Towards the standardization of molten salt loops’ instrumentation and components, celebrated in Evora, October, the 24th, 2023. Agenda and presentations:
1. SolarPACES Task III and SFERA-III project introduction (by M. Rodriguez, CIEMAT, and M. Georgiou, CYI)
2. Facilities for characterization of components
MOSAICO: TESIS (M. Prenzel, DLR)
MOSA and BESis Facilities at Ciemat (M. Rodriguez, CIEMAT)
PROTEAS (M. Georgiou, CYI)
Fraunhofer ISE infrastructure for Molten Salt (by T. Fluri, Fraunhofer-ISE)
ENEA’s Facilities (W. Gaggioli, ENEA)
EMSP Facility (P. Horta, UEvora)
3. Valves characterisation (M. Rodriguez, CIEMAT and W. Gaggioli, ENEA)
4. Pressure sensors characterisation (M. Rodriguez, CIEMAT)
5. Flow meters characterisation (T. Fluri, Fraunhofer-ISE)
6. Electrical heat tracing characterization (W. Gaggioli, ENEA, and M. Georgious, CYI)
7. Integration of components in a 3.6MW molten salt plant (P. Horta, UEvora)
Prototype Testing
Coordinator: P. Garcia, CEA, France
Main Achievements:
– Report Definition of common procedures for testing thermal storage prototypes for STE plants(2016).
– Aligned with task 6.3 of the European project SFERA-III:D6.3 Protocol for testing sensible and latent storage prototypes.
– Main results presented at IRES 2022 in the Workshop Towards a fair evaluation of Thermal Energy Storage prototypes – Guidelines for CSP applications. Agenda and presentations:
1. Why do research and industry need KPI definitions and test procedures? presented by P.Azevedo (LNEG)
2. Case studies on sensible heat storage, presented by J. Weiss (Fraunhofer ISE)
3. Case studies on latent heat storage, presented by P. Garcia (CEA)
4. Case studies on thermal losses calculations, presented by R. Liberatore (ENEA)
Storage Materials
Coordinators: J. Nieto, Tecnalia, Spain, and J. González, IMDEA Energía, Spain
Main Achievements: 3 Round Robin Tests performed:
1) Specific heat capacity of sensible materials (Solar salt with nanoparticles) 9 participants, including industry; Achieved agreement in accurately measuring cp with DSC, according to normalized methods ASTM E1269 and MDSCTM in the range of temperatures 200 and 400ºC (SolarPACES 2016).
2) Reaction enthalpy of thermochemical materials.
a) Cobalt oxide: 7 participants, including industry; there was no coherency and agreement in the results obtained by different partners (SolarPACES2016).
b) Perovskites: 7 participants; Some discrepancies in results (SolarPACES2018).