Comments Response Sheet

Reviewer: Prof. Pierluigi Leone

1. Comments: It could be worth to discuss the potential for CSP systems in India and in
the Asia macro-region.
Response: The section is added in chapter 1 which discusses the potential and
opportunity for a CSP system in India.

2. Comments: The literature review, although informative, had to be more focused with
publications close to the research thesis, namely the modeling and design of thermal
storage systems for CSP applications. A section discussing the contribution of this
thesis beyond the state-of-the-art is required to understand better the novelty of the
work.
Response: Section is added in chapter 2 which provides an outline of the contribution
and novelty of the thesis.

3. Comments: Chapter 3, Analysis of thermal storage, lacks of literature information

providing sources for both cost and net energy of storage technologies. Literature
references should be included explicitly in the Chapter’s Tables (i.e. Table 3.1, 3.2,
etc...).
Response: All references for unit cost and embodied energy are added.

4. Comments: Chapter 3, Analysis of thermal storage, it is not clear which is the approach
used for the net Energy analysis and this reviewer has doubts about the homogeneity of
data used for performing it unless a single database/inventory is indicated with clear
indications of the boundary of the analysis.
Response: Literature source of data is added for all the inventory, as suggested by the
reviewer.

5. Comments: Chapter 4, Modelling of Thermocline Storage, lacks of literature

information.
Response: All missing references are added in the chapter.

6. Comments: Pag 51. And 52, please review the numbers of the figure. Generally, the
Author should revise the text for correct numbering of Figures and Tables.
Response: Figure numbers are corrected.

7. Comments: Pag 67 introduces the second law analysis, however, the optimization is
based on first law parameters. The Author should discuss the opportunity to introduce
an optimization based on the second law analysis and the reason why the optimization
was based on first law parameters.
Response: The optimization objective is to maximize storage efficiency. By First law
approach, energy calculation is convenient. Whereas by second law approach there is
the entropy of mixing of solutions, the calculation is not very reliable for our problem.
Hence the first law has been used.
 Reviewer: Prof. Tara Chandra Kandpal
a. Comments: On what basis the size of the solar thermal power plant (50 MW) and the
hours of storage (six hours) were selected for analysis?
Response: 50 MW CSP plant is a fairly large size solar thermal power plant and there
is also good literature reference is available for the existing Andasol 1 which is a 50
MW power plant.
Minimum storage time of 6 hours is needed for thermal storage, to maintain levelised
electric cost against the capital investment.

b. Comments: Explain the definition of “Energy payback Period” as defined on page 28

of the thesis (last three lines).
Response: Definition of energy payback period "The energy payback period of a power
generating system is the time required to generate as much energy as is consumed
during production and lifetime operation of the system" is added in chapter 3.

c. Comments: Why the location of Andasol was chosen? Why not a location in India?
Similarly why the solar day of August 20, 2007, was chosen? Whether data availability
was a constraint?
Response: There are many factors for choosing the location of Andasol.
 Existing Andasol CSP plant is already integrated with thermal storage.
 Literature is available for thermal storage where the design was made on the
reference Andasol plant.
 Data availability is convenient for Andasol plant.
 Detailed literature (Lara-Fanego, 2012) is available for August 20, 2007, for
Andasol.
 Detailed data of the CSP plant in India is not available.

d. Comments: On what basis the value of the discount rate (10%) was chosen? Similarly,
a justification for selecting the useful life of the storage system as 10000 hours may be
given.
Response: The discount rate is chosen based on the high capital investment cost CSP
Plant. A 10 % discount rate is chosen from (Grant Thornton, 2018) survey for India.

Storage life is in 10000 Cycle, not in10000 hours.

Certain storage material has a life based on an operation cycle of charging and
discharging. So for maintaining similarity on analysis all storage material life is
considered in the cycle. It is considered there one charging & discharging cycle in one
day.
The storage life cycle is considered for 30 years period, therefore 30x365=10950
cycles. Which is round down to10000 cycle.

e. Comments: What is “Charge Rate? (Equation 3.2)

Response: Charge rate is preventive value factor to avoid confusion equation 3.2
rewritten
 Annualised cost 
 (Material cost  Labor cost)
1  Discount
rate 
Year

f. Comments: Which of the assumptions made under sections 3.4 and 4.2 are not likely
to be practically valid? To what extent?
Response: For Section 3.4.
 Heat transfer losses are assumed to be zero during pumping but there must be loss
which can affect less than 1% in system efficiency.
 Operation and maintains cost will be different for all systems but the variation is
not too high.
For Section 4.2.
 The solid porous phase is assumed isotropic and heterogeneous but filler are not in
the same shape, so the system is not isotropic. There may be variation in 2-3% of
system efficiency.
 Temperature-dependent thermal properties are not available for all PCM salts.
Accurate prediction is not possible.

g. Comments: On what basis the scaling of different storage systems was undertaken
for the analysis presented in the thesis?
Response: For solid sensible storage such as concrete and ceramic storage. Quantity
estimated direct scaling experimental slab bill of quantity. Whereas in case of liquid
sensible storage such as two-tank & thermocline storage. Basic design parameter such
as tank height /Diameter, porosity, other-dimensional parameters is maintained same.
Other quantities are estimated.

h. Comments: What is/are the source(s) of the values of energy required (MJ/kg) given
in Tables 3.7 — 3.9?
Response: All references for unit cost and embodied energy are added.

i. Comments: Would an India specific monetary and energy cost analysis have similar
results?
Response: A similar analysis for specific Indian monetary was not found.

j. Comments: Why such a large difference in net energy requirement of different thermal
energy storage options (Fig. 3.10)?
Response: Net energy includes thermal loss and embodied energy. Some of the thermal
storage use less material in quantity with naturally available material as a storage
system. There is also an advantage in term of thermal loss that is the reason for large
net energy in different storage option.

k. Comments: Explain the differences in charging and discharging efficiencies reported

in Tables 6.11 and 6.12.
Response: Charging efficiency is defined as the amount of heat get stored from heat
transfer fluid from CSP.
Discharging efficiency is defined as the amount of heat is taken away from stored
energy in storage.
l. Comments: Are there any constraints in making combinations of filler materials and
heat transfer fluids for thermal energy storage systems?
Response: There is a constraint in making combination filler and heat transfer fluid.

 No chemical reactions take place between filler & HTF.

 Thermodynamic properties of Filler & heat transfer fluid.
 Thermal properties do not get adverse at elevated temperature, the heat transfer
must take place at this temperature.

m. Comments: What are the challenges in large scale deployment of thermocline based
solar thermal storage systems?
Response: Challenges are as follows:
 Tank refurbishment is very difficult.
 There are surfaces and intrusion of the nitrate salts into the pores and cracks of the
filler materials, resulting in weight gain.
 Scaling in the system, including tank internals, piping, and within the solar field
heat collection elements.
The section is also added in the thesis.