LAPSE:2023.8926v1
Published Article
LAPSE:2023.8926v1
Effect of Actual Recuperators’ Effectiveness on the Attainable Efficiency of Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles for Solar Thermal Power Plants
February 24, 2023
One of the most promising concentrated solar power technologies is the central receiver tower power station with heliostat field, which has attracted renewed research interest in the current decade. The introduction of the sCO2 recompression Brayton cycles in the near future installations instead of the Rankine cycle is very probable, due to the prospects of a significant efficiency improvement, process equipment size and capital cost reduction. In this study, energy and exergy analysis of a recompression Brayton cycle configuration for a central receiver power station are performed. Special emphasis is given to the computation of actual performance for the High-Temperature Recuperator and the Low-Temperature Recuperator. The results define realistic thermal and exergetic efficiency limits for the specific cycle configurations applied on a central receiver solar power plant with variable turbine entry temperature. Thermal efficiency, predicted with the improved accuracy of heat exchanger computations, does not exceed the 50% target. Overall, a realizable total power plant efficiency of 37% at 900 K turbine entry temperature is predicted, which is a significant improvement on the current state-of-the-art with steam Rankine cycles.
Keywords
heat exchanger effectiveness, heliostat field, printed circuit heat exchangers, recompression Brayton cycle, Solar Thermal, supercritical carbon dioxide
Suggested Citation
Stamatellos G, Stamatelos T. Effect of Actual Recuperators’ Effectiveness on the Attainable Efficiency of Supercritical CO2 Brayton Cycles for Solar Thermal Power Plants. (2023). LAPSE:2023.8926v1
Author Affiliations
Stamatellos G: Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Thessaly, 38334 Volos, Greece [ORCID]
Stamatelos T: Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Thessaly, 38334 Volos, Greece [ORCID]
Journal Name
Energies
Volume
15
Issue
20
First Page
7773
Year
2022
Publication Date
2022-10-20
Published Version
ISSN
1996-1073
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PII: en15207773, Publication Type: Journal Article
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LAPSE:2023.8926v1
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doi:10.3390/en15207773
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Feb 24, 2023
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