Southwest Research Institute dealt with government and business collaborators to successfully establish and show full-blown turbomachinery for one of the worlds first supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) power systems for a focused solar power (CSP) plant. The innovation integrates sCO2 power cycles with integrated thermal energy storage.
The project was supported by the U.S. Department of Energys APOLLO program, which was created to improve efficiency and minimized the expense of electrical power from CSP plants. The 10MW sCO2 turbomachinery has actually effectively completed performance and endurance tests in a closed-loop environment.
sCO2 is carbon dioxide held above an important temperature level and pressure, which causes it to act like a gas while having the density of a liquid. Its nonflammable and likewise nontoxic, having actually been utilized in dry cleansing processes, low-GHG refrigeration systems, along with to decaffeinate coffee.
The fluid homes in its supercritical state makes sCO2 a highly effective fluid to create power due to high density, low viscosity, and beneficial heat transfer properties.
” Advancing grid-scale energy storage is an essential action to allowing complete penetration of renewables into power generation. Utilizing sCO2 as a working fluid can increase the effectiveness of a CSP plant by as much as 10 percentage points,” stated Dr. Jason Wilkes, supervisor of SwRIs Rotating Machine Dynamics Section. “The high efficiency of the sCO2 cycle likewise allows the turbomachinery to have a smaller sized footprint– it is 1/20th the size of a standard steam turbine, permitting improved setup in the majority of environments.”
CSP innovation utilizes mirrors or lenses to focus a large amount of sunshine onto a receiver, which typically transforms concentrated light into heat and extracts thermal energy to generate power using steam turbines. The system shops the energy as heat, which can then be converted to on-demand energy utilizing sCO2 power cycles, enhancing performance and decreasing operating costs.
“sCO2 power cycle technology is a fraction of the size of standard turbomachinery, using improved efficiency for numerous applications. The effective MW-scale demonstration of sCO2 technology at full-cycle conditions is an interesting turning point,” stated Dr. Tim Allison, director of SwRIs Machinery Department.
SwRI and Hanwha Power Systems, an international energy equipment company with head office in South Korea, established and showed the new integrally geared sCO2 turbomachinery tested at full-blown compressor conditions and full-pressure full-temperature screening of the turbine at unprecedented MW-scale conditions of up to 720 ° C and 275 bar. The system is planned to be integrated into a CSP pilot plant at a future date.
This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), under Award Number DE-0007114.
” Advancing grid-scale energy storage is a crucial action to making it possible for full penetration of renewables into power generation. Using sCO2 as a working fluid can increase the performance of a CSP plant by as much as 10 portion points,” stated Dr. Jason Wilkes, supervisor of SwRIs Rotating Machine Dynamics Section. “The high efficiency of the sCO2 cycle also permits the turbomachinery to have a smaller footprint– it is 1/20th the size of a basic steam turbine, enabling for enhanced setup in most environments.”