Exergo-Economic and Environmental Analysis of a Solar Integrated Thermo-Electric Storage

Daniele Fiaschi, Giampaolo Manfrida, Karolina Petela, Federico Rossi, Adalgisa Sinicropi and Lorenzo Talluri
Additional contact information
Daniele Fiaschi: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Florence, 50134 Florence, Italy
Giampaolo Manfrida: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Florence, 50134 Florence, Italy
Karolina Petela: Department of Thermal Technology, Silesian University of Technology, Konarskiego 22, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland
Federico Rossi: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Florence, 50134 Florence, Italy
Adalgisa Sinicropi: Department of Biotechnology, R2ES Lab, Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Siena, Via A. Moro, 2, 53100 Siena, Italy
Lorenzo Talluri: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Florence, 50134 Florence, Italy

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 13, 1-21

Abstract: Renewable energies are often subject to stochastic resources and daily cycles. Energy storage systems are consequently applied to provide a solution for the mismatch between power production possibility and its utilization period. In this study, a solar integrated thermo-electric energy storage (S-TEES) is analyzed both from an economic and environmental point of view. The analyzed power plant with energy storage includes three main cycles, a supercritical CO 2 power cycle, a heat pump and a refrigeration cycle, indirectly connected by sensible heat storages. The hot reservoir is pressurized water at 120/160 °C, while the cold reservoir is a mixture of water and ethylene glycol, maintained at −10/−20 °C. Additionally, the power cycle’s evaporator section rests on a solar-heated intermediate temperature (95/40 °C) heat reservoir. Exergo-economic and exergo-environmental analyses are performed to identify the most critical components of the system and to obtain the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), as well as the environmental indicators of the system. Both economic and environmental analyses revealed that solar energy converting devices are burdened with the highest impact indicators. According to the results of exergo-economic analysis, it turned out that average annual LCOE of S-TEES can be more than two times higher than the regular electricity prices. However, the true features of the S-TEES system should be only fully assessed if the economic results are balanced with environmental analysis. Life cycle assessment (LCA) revealed that the proposed S-TEES system has about two times lower environmental impact than referential hydrogen storage systems compared in the study.

Keywords: energy storage; exergo-economic; exergo-environmental; solar energy; TEES; LCA (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: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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