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
A STEP in the Right Direction: Modeling AC Losses in a Tokamak Design
The Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) program aims to deliver a prototype fusion energy plant in the ...
Floating on Sound Waves with Acoustic Levitation
As part of an industry that saves lives on a regular basis, pharmaceutical companies are in need of systems that can ...
MRI Tumor-Tracked Cancer Treatment
Radiation therapy targeting in cancer treatment involves many uncertainties, including the movement of targeted sites ...
Get an Inside Look at How Samsung Uses Acoustics Simulations
Step into the state-of-the-art Samsung Audio Lab to see how they develop loudspeakers, soundbars, and other audio ...
