Concentrating solar power has had a hard time getting off the ground in the US, but that is not stopping the Department of Energy. The agency is in the middle of a $100 million program aimed at pushing the technology into the mainstream of the renewable energy revolution, and they are not stopping at power generation. Industrial decarbonization is also on the menu. That means more green hydrogen is in play, despite what the skeptics say.
Concentrating Solar Power To Decarbonize The Hard-To-Decarbonize
Concentrating solar power plants are complex systems. Instead of using specialized materials to draw electricity from a solar panel, they deploy specialized mirrors to bounce solar energy from a wide field of points onto a much narrower field, where it heats a store of molten salt or a specialized oil.
The heated liquid can be piped to a generating station, where it boils water to produce steam to run a turbine and generate electricity, as in a conventional power plant. Or, the liquid can be used simply as heat to run industrial processes.
If that sounds expensive and laborious, it is. However, the payoff in terms of carbon-free power can be huge, partly due to the built-in energy storage angle. The Obama administration promoted concentrating solar power as the wave of the renewable energy future, citing its ability to deliver zero emission electricity on a 24/7 basis.
In terms of commercial development, not much came of it after former President Trump took office with a mission to promote fossil energy. The Solar Energy Industries Association currently lists just 11 CSP plants in the US, including several that went online during the Obama administration.
Nevertheless, the Energy Department continued to promote R&D on solar power and next-generation CSP technology all throughout Trump’s term in office.
Additional signs of a CSP revival have been popping up during the Biden administration. One encouraging development consists of a modular approach that skips over some of the site selection issues that have held back the concentrating solar power industry.
Another pathway is the deployment of high heat from CSP plants to run industrial processes, and that brings us to the latest round of CSP funding.
$24 Million To Kick Concentrating Solar Power Into High Gear
The new round of funding will split $24 million among 10 projects in two categories.
One category deals with solid particle technology, which is a relatively new development on the CSP scene. Instead of molten salt, this technology deploys solid particles to transfer solar energy. One key application is to generate high heat for supercritical carbon dioxide systems.
Supercritical CO2 is a liquid, not a gas. One of the advantages of supercritical CO2 systems is their small footprint, which could translate into savings on overall system costs and allow for a greater range of application.
High heat creates new materials and engineering challenges …….
Source: https://cleantechnica.com/2022/09/30/us-energy-dept-still-holds-torch-for-concentrating-solar-power/