Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)

The idea on the base of the Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technology is to focus a large area of sunlight onto a receiver, which can be basically a linear or central receiver, depending on the concentration system adopted. The scope of the solar receiver is to convert the concentrated solar radiation in high-temperature heat, which is then exploited to produce power by means of a common thermodynamic cycle, or it can be directly used as process heat in industrial processes. CSP can be considered as a promising renewable energy sector able to provide dispatchable electricity at large scale. This is primarily due to the immense solar resource available for terrestrial solar collectors, which exceeds the current world’s energy demand several thousand times. Moreover, CSP plants can efficiently store thermal energy, as opposed to PV. CSP plants are also well suited for hybridization with biomass as well as conventional fuels, enabling operators to adapt the power production according to the needs of the electricity grid.

Since 2013, the NEMO Group is also active in the modelling of CSP systems. The research activities in this field has been mainly devoted to the numerical modeling of the solar receiver. The latter is a key component in a CSP plant, reaching a very high efficiency at the receiver level is mandatory to make CSP generation competitive with conventional fossil-fired or nuclear-based technology. Both linear and central receivers have been modeled performing single-component analysis (CFD based), as well as a system level studies (Modelica language based). Follow a list of research activities about the CSP technology conducted or still under investigation at the NEMO Group.

  • Multiscale analysis of an open air volumetric receiver of honeycomb type.
  • Analysis of a tubular receiver for a 1 MWe Linear Fresnel Collector (LFC) pilot plant.
  • Developing of a numerical procedure to estimate the thermal fatigue lifetime of tubular central receivers working with air.
  • Developing of a numerical model of a sodium tubular central receiver to be used in the SolTherm Modelica library, calibrated on an accurate CFD evaluation of the convective heat losses.

A list of the NEMO publications in the CSP field can be found under the Publications section.

Thesis proposals

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