Development of an Integrated Thermal Energy Storage and Free-Piston Stirling Generator for a Concentrating Solar Power System

Songgang Qiu, Laura Solomon and Garrett Rinker
Additional contact information
Songgang Qiu: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA
Laura Solomon: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA
Garrett Rinker: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 9, 1-17

Abstract: Incorporating thermal energy storage (TES) into a concentrating solar power (CSP) system extends the power production hours, eliminating intermittency and reducing the Levelized Cost of the Energy (LCOE). The designed TES system was integrated with a 3 kW free-piston Stirling convertor. A NaF–NaCl eutectic salt was chosen as the phase change material (PCM) with a melting temperature of 680 °C. This eutectic salt has an energy density that is 5 to 10 times that of a typical molten salt PCM. In order to overcome the drawbacks of the material having a low thermal conductivity, heat pipes were embedded into the PCM to enhance the heat transfer rate within the system. Since the dish collector tracks the sun over the course of the day, two operational extremes were tested on the system; horizontal (zero solar elevation at sunrise/sunset) and vertical (solar noon). Although the system’s performance was below the expectations due to improperly sized wicks in the secondary heat pipes, the results indicated that the Stirling engine was able to produce 1.3 kWh of electricity by extracting latent heat energy from the PCM; thus, the concept of the design was validated.

Keywords: phase change material (PCM); thermal energy storage (TES); concentrating solar power (CSP); heat pipe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/9/1361/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/9/1361/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:10:y:2017:i:9:p:1361-:d:111280

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().