Project Title: Re-Designing the CSP Thermal Energy Storage System to Enable Higher Temperature Performance at Reduced Cost
Funding Opportunity: Technology to Market 3
Solar Subprogram: Technology to Market
Location: Santa Monica, California
Amount Awarded: $2,000,000
Awardee Cost Share: $500,000

Concentrating solar power (CSP) plants are able to store the sun’s energy via nitrate salts that are held in large metallic tanks. An expensive stainless steel is needed in order to store the salts at 565o and 580o C.   This project is developing new tank designs that will eliminate the need for expensive alloys, which will help to make CSP plants more cost effective and pave the way for storage solutions in the future as the industry enables nitrate salts to reach even higher operating temperatures.

The research team is developing a tank that uses internal insulation using of ceramic and metallic materials to reduce the temperature of the steel pressure boundary, enabling designers to use less expensive alloys. In addition, the team will work to relocate the salt pumps from their present position, creating more conventional designs that reduce the need for expensive support structures.

This project is the first of its kind, as no CSP plant in operation today uses internal insulation to reduce the temperature of the tank walls. In addition to enabling lower cost thermal energy storage systems, the design approaches developed during this project may enable storage at the much higher temperatures that will likely be required for the next generation of CSP plants utilizing supercritical carbon dioxide.