Techno-economic analysis and dynamic performance evaluation of an integrated green concept based on concentrating solar power and a transportable heat pipe-cooled nuclear reactor

Jiaolong Deng, Chaoran Guan, Yujie Sun, Xiaojing Liu, Tengfei Zhang, Hui He and Xiang Chai

Energy, 2024, vol. 303, issue C

Abstract: The nuclear-solar hybrid system (NSHS) is regarded as a promising solution to meet the growing energy requirements of remote areas. Currently, design schemes and parametric analyses for small-scale application scenarios are still limited. This study has proposed an innovative transportable micro heat-pipe cooled nuclear reactor (HPR) coupled with a concentrating solar power (CSP) system to achieve flexible load regulation. First, a dynamic simulation model for the NSHS is established in the Simulink platform, considering turbomachine off-design characteristics and the power-load matching dispatch principle. Then, techno-economic analyses are carried out to explore the exergy and capital cost flow processes. The results reveal that the NSHS shows clear seasonal features with the highest load cover rate of 98.31 % in summer and the lowest of 73.82 % in winter. The total exergy effectiveness of the NSHS is 29.4 %, with an average electricity cover ratio of 88.67 % and a solar energy penetration ratio of 13.32 %. The calculated LCOE is 80.84 $/MWh, and the payback period is 3.62 years. The life cycle emission of the system is assessed as 10.23 g CO2 eq./kWh. Compared with the solar standalone system, the hybrid system with higher efficiency faces challenges in high-temperature resistance and thermal insulation.

Keywords: Concentrating solar power; Heat pipe-cooled nuclear reactor; Thermal energy storage; Dynamic modeling; Energy and exergy analysis; Exergoeconomic investigation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544224017961
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:energy:v:303:y:2024:i:c:s0360544224017961

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2024.132022

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().