Control strategy of the module concrete thermal energy storage for parabolic trough power plants

Solid sensible heat storage is an attractive option for high-temperature storage applications in terms of investment and maintenance costs. Typical solid thermal energy storage systems use a heat transfer fluid to transfer heat as the fluid flows through a tubular heat exchanger embedded in the solid storage material. A one-dimensional unsteady model is developed using the modified lumped capacitance method for a solid cylindrical heat storage unit. A modular charging/discharging control strategy is proposed to improve utilization of the solid storage material. The control strategy of modular charging/discharging using two modules could increase the storage material utilization from 33.4% to 38%. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.