ENEL, Rome, Italy
Italian utility ENEL and the Italian National Agency for New Technologies joined together to develop a new kind of Concentrating Solar Power (CSP), using Parabolic Trough CSP to generate electricity during sunny hours as well as under overcast conditions or at night. This new type of CSP plant depends on molten salt as a medium for storing heat in large, well-insulated tanks.
Molten salt has several advantages over the previously used pressurized oil because it can operate at a higher temperature which maximizes energy efficiency and potentially reducing the consumption of fossil fuels. The tanks are half the size because no oil-to-salt heat exchangers are required, and they provide seven hours of thermal storage. The salt can also be cooled and re-used, which is much more efficient than oil which degrades with use.
Keeping salt in the liquid state presented a challenge for ENEL. They used COMSOL Multiphysics and its built in library of heat transfer coefficients to analyze temperature and heat loss throughout the drainage circuit, optimizing both its geometry and insulation properties.
Suggested Stories
Continuous Casting: Optimizing Both Machine and Process with Simulation
The process of continuous casting has transformed steel production, saving valuable resources while improving steel ...
Bosch Powers the Automotive Sector Toward an Electrified Future
To design three-phase inverters and DC link capacitors, two integral components of electric vehicle drivetrains, Bosch ...
Modeling Scar Effects in Electrical Spinal Cord Stimulation
The Neuromodulation Group at Lahey Clinic conducted a study based upon spinal cord stimulation (SCS). SCS involves ...
Control of Joule Heating Extends Performance and Device Life
Large electrical systems carrying high currents could pose a danger if any of their components, such as fuses and bus ...
