Commercial direct absorption receiver design studies

TL;DRAbstract

As part of a joint Sandia/SERI study, we designed a commercial-sized molten salt direct absorption receiver for a solar central receiver plant. Thermal and structural analyses of several possible configurations showed the most severe conditions for the absorber arise from operational thermal stresses. For this reason, we selected a thin, cylindrical, pretensioned shell to eliminate potentially damaging compressive stresses. The shell is also compressively loaded from inside through a rigid subpanel and a layer of dense fiber insulation to provide vibration dampening and horizontal pretensioning of the shell. This receiver will be 40% lighter and 30% less expensive than a salt-in-tube receiver of comparable size, and its annual performance benefits are substantial. The newly designed direct absorption receiver has the potential to reduce levelized energy costs from solar central receiver plants by about 15%. 23 refs., 34 figs., 14 tabs.

Chat with Paper

AI Agents for this Paper