Seminar report on

“Solar Power Tower”

Submitted by

Shailesh Bhagwan Patil

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of

Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering

Deogiri Institute of Engineering and Management Studies,

Aurangabad.

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Year 2019-2020
 CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the seminar report entitled

“Solar Power Tower”

Submitted by

Shailesh Bhagwan Patil

[Roll No. 41333]

Has completed as per the requirements of

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad.

In partial fulfillment of

Degree of Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering

For the academic Year 2019-2020

Prof. Y.B. Sardar Prof. K.S. Bansode

` Seminar Guide Seminar Coordinator

Prof P.G. Taur Dr. Ulhas D. Shiurkar

Head of Department Director
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This seminar work has been carried out to meet the academic requirements
of Dr. BAMU University, Aurangabad for the completion of Bachelor of
Engineering. I would like to put on record, my appreciation and gratitude to all
who have rendered their support and input. Without them, it would not have been
possible for me to shape this study.
I have received immense guidance from my guide Prof. Y.B. Sardar,
seminar Co-coordinator, Prof. K.S. Bansode and Prof. P. G. Taur, Head of the
Mechanical Engineering Department. I would therefore like to convey my sincere
gratitude to them. I would like to thank, Dr. Ulhas D. Shiurkar, Director of
Deogiri Institute of Engineering and Management Studies, Aurangabad, for his
unending encouragement. All the more, I would also like to thank to him for trust
and confidence in me.
Finally, I would like to thank to my parents for love, encouragement and
support from their hearts. I dedicate all my success to each one of them.

Shailesh B. Patil
[Roll No. 41333]
 INDEX

Sr.No Title Page.no

1 Introduction

2 Literature Review

3 Core technical contain

4 Case study (if any)

5 Advantages , Disadvantages & Applications

6 Conclusion

References
 FIGURE INDEX

Sr.No Title Page.no

 Graph Index

Sr.No Title Page.no

 Table Index

Sr.No Title Page.no

 1. INTRODUCTION
Green technology is related to technological advances made in the field of power
generation from non conventional energy source that are considered to be environmentally
friendly and non-polluting. Every form of energy collection will result in some pollution but
those that are green are known to cause less than those that are not. Green house gases ,a
byproduct of traditional sources of energy such as fossil fuels are said to be causing global
warming at an accelerated pace and hence there is a need to focus on technology that is
environmentally friendly and also economically feasible. The United Nations Energy
Organization tags fossil fuels as elementary energy/conventional energy.
Electricity is merely a secondary energy derived from these sources. At present the
energy consumed all over the world relies mainly on five main energy sources like coal,
petroleum, natural gas, water and nuclear energy. The consumption of petroleum constitutes
approximately 60% of energy used from all sources.
Statistics show that daily consumption of petroleum is 40 million barrels of which 50% is
for automobile use. In accordance with this calculation, as fuels are burnt poisonous materials
such as 500 million tonnes of carbon monoxide, 100 million tonnes of hydrocarbons,550 million
tonnes of carbon and 50 million tonnes of nitrogen oxides are emitted into atmosphere every year
causing Green House Effect.
It can be classified under -
First generation technologies are most competitive in locations with abundant resources. Their
future depends on exploration of available resource potential particularly in developing countries
and on overcoming challenges related to environment and social acceptance.
Example:-hydroelectric plants, Geo thermal power plants and biomass briquettes.
Second generation technologies are said to be the future of power generation and is fast catching
up but the market for these sources are limited to only a few countries.
Example: - solar heating systems, use of ethanol, etc.
Third generation technologies are not yet widely demonstrated or commercialized. They are on
the horizon and may have potential comparable to other renewable energy technologies but still
depend on attracting sufficient attention and R&D funding.
Ex: - SOLAR POWER TOWERS

Goals of Green Technology

Green technology is the future of this society. Its main goal is to find ways to produce
technology in ways that do not damage or deplete the Earth's natural resources.
In addition to not depleting natural resources, green technology is meant as an alternative source
of technology that reduces fossil fuels and demonstrates less damage to human, animal, and plant
health, as well as damage to the world, in general.
Next, green technology is so that products can be re- used and recycled. The use of green
technology (clean technology) is supposed to reduce the amount of waste and pollution that is
created during production and consumption. The most important and urgent concern and want
for green technology is for energy purposes. We need better; more efficient was to produce
energy without burning the entire world's coal and using all the world's fossil fuels and natural
resources.
 2. LITERRATURE REVIEW
M. Binotti, C. Sterpos, G. Lozza “Small scale solar tower coupled with micro gas turbine”
[September 2019]

This paper studies a small-scale CSP system composed of a solar tower and a recuperative air
micro gas turbine (i.e. net power in the 100 to 200 kW range). A code is developed to determine
the optical performance of the heliostat field coupled with a secondary concentrator, while
another code computes the thermal engine performance. The heliostat field layout is taken from a
real plant, while the secondary optics is studied to maximize the optical-thermal efficiency. For
every Effective DNI (EDNI) and ambient temperature the turbine operation is optimized
allowing to achieve a yearly solar-to-electricity efficiency of 16.3%. Summing up the cost of
each component, an overall plant cost of about 2300 V/kW (peak) and a LCOE of 175 V/MW
are obtained. A sensitivity analysis on design EDNI, impacting on turbine size, is performed
showing that its reduction from 700 W/m2 to 550 W/m2 allows reducing the LCOE down to 158
V/MW, a value competitive with large-scale solar towers. The possibility of hybridization of
plant (i.e. improving the gas turbine power output in selected hours, by means of biome thane or
natural gas combustion) was considered to further reduce the LCOE.

K. S. Reddy, C. Ananthsornaraj “Design, Development and Performance Investigation of

Solar Parabolic Trough Collector 2 for Large-Scale Solar Power Plants”[July 2019]

Parabolic Trough Collector (PTC) system for process heat application with medium 9
temperature range is decisive for the tremendous availability of solar energy. In the present work,
10 the prototype of 5.77m aperture and 80.2 ̊ rim angle of PTC system with Evacuated Receiver
11 (ER) and Non-Evacuated Receiver (NER) were designed, fabricated, installed and evaluated
for 12 the performances in the IIT Madras, Chennai, India. Experiments were carried out to
analyze the 13 optical and thermal performances of the receiver based on the ASHRAE standards
93-2010. The 14 performance parameters such as peak optical efficiency, incident angle
modifier, time constant 15 (both heating and cooling), heat loss and thermal efficiency for ER
and NER were measured. 16 This article also present the methods for measuring the heat losses
of both receivers under 17 laboratory test conditions and on-field experiments based on energy
balance of the receiver. The 18 peak optical efficiency of ER and NER is close to 72% and 68%
respectively at minimum heat 19 loss condition. The maximum thermal efficiency of the ER and
NER of PTC systems are 66 % 20 and 64 % for the mass flow rate of 0.12 kg/s and 64.3 % and
62.1 % for the mass flow rate of 21 0.06 kg/s. Performance studies of receivers were carried out
to analyze the effects of the inlet and 22 outlet temperature of HTF, instantaneous thermal
efficiency and weather parameters (DNI and 23 ambient temperature) on both sunny and cloudy
day. The maximum temperature achieved by the 24 HTF in ER and NER is 155 ̊ C and 137 ̊ C
for the corresponding solar incident radiation 756 W/m2 and 691 W/m2 25 respectively.
Francisco J. Collado Jesus Guallar “Quick design of regular heliostat fields for commercial
solar tower power plants”[ April 2019]

The design of the collector field for commercial solar power tower plants, including tower
height, receiver dimensions and the layout of thousands of heliostats, keeps on being a complex
and time consuming task. The details of the full layout optimization for a big surrounding field
plant, as Noor III (150 MW , 7400 heliostats), performed with Campo code, are presented here
by the first time in order to contribute suggestions that simplify the optimization without losing
accuracy. After the validation of Campo, it is shown that it is able to optimize the whole radial
staggered layout of thousands of heliostats with only two parameters. Running more than one
hundred and fifty designs of the collector field, a ‘regular’ layout has been found. For big plants,
this ‘regular’ layout may be used as a general one for any combination of tower height and
receiver dimension tested thus simplifying greatly the process. The differences between the field
efficiency for the ‘regular’ layout and that of the actual optimum layout are well less than 1%.
Finally, it is found that, for big plants and tall towers, dense layouts work better than expanded
layouts, in spite of that blockings are better for the latter.

Axel Gottschalka, Umesh Ramamoorthia “Parametric Simulation and Economic

Estimation of Thermal Energy Storage in Solar Power Tower”[2017]

The alternative for fossil fuel generated energy is energy from solar plants. A solar power tower
system, which is a type of concentrating solar power (CSP), is simulated with the SAM (System
Advisor Model) to help in decision-making on whether or not to include a storage system in it.
Addition of thermal storage in a solar power tower system brings sustainability and dispatch
ability of the power produced. Since solar power tower systems require high investment costs to
be established, the percentage contribution of Thermal energy Storage (TES) on the installation
costs are found. In this paper, different locations are chosen from India, Germany and
Mediterranean countries to simulate a solar power plant of 100 MW capacities. Initially, the
excel sheet with pre-built functions of SAM are custom modified.

Yan Luoa, Tao Lua, Xiaoze Du” Novel optimization design strategy for solar power tower
plants”[2018]

A novel strategy using the Sobol’-Simulated Annealing algorithm was proposed to reduce the
number of optimization steps and guarantee the accuracy of a molten salt solar power tower plant
design. The new method combined the Sobol’ method and the Simulated Annealing algorithm
for global sensitivity analysis and global optimization, respectively. Based on the sensitivity
analysis, the high-dimension global optimization problem was transformed into several low-
dimension global optimization problems by parameter decoupling. In order to obtain the global
minimum levelized cost of electricity of the solar power tower plant, these low-dimension
models were successively optimized by utilizing the Simulated Annealing algorithm.
 3. GENERAL PRINCIPLE

Solar Tower

Figure 1: - Solar Tower

• Solar power towers also known as Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Towers generate electric
power from sunlight by focusing concentrated solar radiation on tower mounted heat exchangers.
• The system uses hundreds to thousands of sun-tracking mirrors called heliostats to reflect the
incident sunlight onto the receiver.
• These plants are best suited for utility-scale applications in the 30 to 400 MW range.
• The limited supply of fossil hydrocarbon resources and the negative impact of CO2 emissions
on the global environment dictate the increasing usage of renewable energy sources.
• Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is the most likely candidate for providing the majority of this
renewable energy, because it is amongst the most cost-effective renewable electricity
technologies and because its supply is not restricted if the energy generated is transported from
the world's solar belt to the population centers.
• In power tower systems, heliostats (A Heliostat is a device that tracks the movement of the sun
which is used to orient a mirror of field of mirrors, throughout the day, to reflect sunlight onto a
target-receiver) reflect and concentrate sunlight onto a central tower-mounted receiver where the
energy is transferred to a HTF.
• This energy is then passed either to the storage or to power-conversion systems, which convert
the thermal energy into electricity.
Heliostat field, the heliostat controls, the receiver, the storage system, and the heat engine, which
drives the generator, are the major components of the system. For a large heliostat field, a
cylindrical receiver has advantages when used with Rankine cycle engines, particularly for
radiation from heliostats at the far edges of the field.
Cavity receivers with larger tower height to heliostat field area ratios are used for higher
temperatures required for the operation of turbines.
These plants are defined by the options chosen for a HTF, for the thermal storage medium and
for the power-conversion cycle. HTF may be water/steam, molten nitrate salt, liquid metals or air
and the thermal storage may be provided by PCM (phase change materials) or thermally
insulating materials.. Power tower systems usually achieves concentration ratios of 300–1500,
can operate at temperatures up to 1500o C.
To maintain constant steam parameters even at varying solar irradiation, two methods can be
used:
Integration of a fossil back-up burner; or
Utilization of a thermal storage as a buffer
By the use of thermal storage, the heat can be stored for few hours to allow electricity production
during periods of peak need, even if the solar radiation is not available.
Examples of heliostat based power plants:
• The 10 MW Solar One and Solar Two demonstration projects in the Mojave Desert, which
have now been decommissioned.
• The above 10 MW Solar Power Tower in Spain builds on these projects. In Spain the 11 MW
PS10 Solar Power Tower was recently completed.
• In South Africa, a solar power plant is planned with 4000 to 5000 heliostat mirrors, each having
an area of 140 m².
 Figure 2: - Layout of Solar Power Tower
Major parts of solar tower are –
1) Heliostats
2) Central Receiver
3) Molten Salt
4) Steam Generator

1) Heliostats
Heliostats are reflective surfaces or mirrors which track the sun’s rays and reflect it onto the
central receiver. Relatively few heliostats have been manufactured to date, and their cost is high
(>$250/m2). As the demand for solar power increases, heliostat mass production methods will be
developed that will significantly reduce their cost.
Research is currently being conducted under the Solar Manufacturing Technology (SolMaT)
Initiative to develop low-cost manufacturing techniques for early commercial low volume builds.
Prices are a strong function of annual production rate.
 Figure 3: - Heliostat
Since the heliostat field represents the largest single capital investment in a power tower plant,
advancements in technology are needed to improve the ability to manufacture, reduce costs, and
increase the service life of heliostats.
In particular, a lower cost azimuth drive system is needed (i.e., to rotate the heliostat around an
axis that is perpendicular to the ground).
Recent Developments in Heliostat designs:
The modern R&D efforts have focused on polymer reflectors and stretched-membrane heliostats.
A stretched-membrane heliostat consists of a metal ring, across which two thin metal membranes
are stretched.
A focus control system adjusts the curvature of the front membrane, which is laminated with a
silvered-polymer reflector, usually by adjusting the pressure in the plenum between the two
membranes.

Central Receiver:
Central receiver (or power tower) systems use a field of distributed mirrors – heliostats – that
individually track the sun and focus the sunlight on the top of a tower.
By concentrating the sunlight 600–1000 times, they achieve temperatures from 800°C to well
over 1000°C.
• The central receiver is also called high-tech heat exchanger which sits atop a tower. The central
receiver heats molten salt at around 250°C, pumped from a “cold” storage tank, to 565°C, where
it flows to a “hot” tank for storage.
• When the grid load dispatcher decides electricity is needed from the plant, hot salt is pumped to
a steam generating system that produces superheated steam for a turbine/generator.
• The salt then is returned to the cold tank, where it is stored and eventually reheated in the
receiver to complete the cycle.
• Smaller, simpler receivers are needed to improve efficiency and reduce maintenance. Advanced
receiver development currently underway, under the SolMaT Initiative, includes consideration of
new steel alloys for the receiver tubes and ease of manufacture for the entire receiver subsystem.
Panels of these new receiver designs were initially tested at Solar Two.

Molten Salt:
(MOLTEN SALT STORAGE SYSTEM)
Molten nitrate salt, though an excellent thermal storage medium, can be a troublesome fluid to
deal with because of its relatively high freezing point (220oC/428ºF). To keep the salt molten, a
fairly complex heat trace system must be employed. (Heat tracing is composed of electric wires
attached to the outside surface of pipes. Pipes are kept warm by way of resistance heating.)
Problems were experienced during the startup of Solar Two due to the improper installation of
the heat trace. Though this problem has been addressed and corrected, research is needed reduce
the reliance on heat tracing in the plant.
This could be accomplished by one or more of the following options:
(1) Develop a salt “anti-freeze” to lower the freezing point,
(2) Identify and/or develop components that can be “cold started” without pre-application of the
heat trace, or
(3) Develop thermal management practices that are less reliant on heat trace.
Within the Solar Two project, the third option will be explored. If it is unsuccessful, the other
two options should be pursued. Also, valves can be troublesome in molten-salt service. Special
packing’s must be used, oftentimes with extended bonnets, and leaks are not uncommon.
Furthermore, freezing in the valve or packing can prevent it from operating correctly. While
today’s valve technology is adequate for molten-salt power towers, design improvements and
standardization would reduce risk and ultimately reduce O&M costs.
The salt storage medium is a mixture of 60 percent sodium nitrate and 40 percent potassium
nitrate. It melts at 220ºC (428ºF) and is maintained in a molten state (290ºC/554ºF) in the ‘cold’
storage tank. Molten salt can be difficult to handle because it has a low viscosity (similar to
water) and it wets metal surfaces extremely well.
The energy storage system for Solar Two consists of two 875,000 liter storage tanks which were
fabricated on-site by Pitt-Des Moines. The tanks are externally insulated and constructed of
stainless steel and carbon steel for the hot and cold tanks, respectively. Thermal capacity of the
system is 110 MW. A natural convection cooling system is used in the foundation of each tank to
minimize overheating and excessive dehydration of the underlying soil.
Steam Generator or turbines:
The steam generator design selected for the Solar Two project is completely different than the
prototype tested at Sandia Laboratories during the technology development activity of the 1980’s
for Solar One because of change in heat transfer fluid. The reticulating-drum-type system tested
at Sandia performed well. However, at Solar Two, a kettle-boiler design was selected in an
attempt to reduce cost. Significant problems have been encountered with this new system during
the startup phase at Solar Two, requiring a redesign in many areas. Depending on the success of
implementing the design changes, it was considered appropriate to reevaluate the optimum steam
generator design before proceeding to the first commercial plant.

Solar One
Solar One, which operated from 1982 to 1988, was the world’s largest power tower plant. It
proved that large-scale power production with power towers was feasible. In that plant, water
was converted to steam in the receiver and used directly to power a conventional Rankine-cycle
steam turbine.
The heliostat field consisted of 1818 heliostats of 39.3 m2 reflective area each. The project met
most of its technical objectives by demonstrating -
(1) The feasibility of generating power with a power tower,
(2) The ability to generate 10 MW for eight hours a day on summer solstice and four hours a day
during winter solstice.
During its final year of operation, Solar One’s availability during hours of sunshine was 96%
and its annual efficiency was about 7%. (Annual efficiency was relatively low because of the
plant’s small size and the inclusion of non-optimized subsystems.)
The Solar One thermal storage system stored heat from solar-produced steam in a tank filled
with rocks and sand using oil as the heat-transfer fluid. The system extended the plant’s power-
generation capability into the night and provided heat for generating low-grade steam for
keeping parts of the plant warm during off-hours and for morning startup.
Unfortunately, the storage system was complex and thermodynamically inefficient. While Solar
One successfully demonstrated power tower technology, it also revealed the disadvantages of a
water/steam system, such as the intermittent operation of the turbine due to cloud transience and
lack of effective thermal storage.
During the operation of Solar One, research began on the more advanced molten-salt power
tower design. This development culminated in the Solar Two project
 4. CASE STUDY
“Parametric Simulation and Economic Estimation of Thermal Energy Storage in Solar
Power Tower” Axel Gottschalka, Umesh Ramamoorthia

4.1 Introduction
A Solar power tower (also called a central receiver system) is a type of concentrating solar power
(CSP) system that consists of a heliostat field, tower and receiver, power block, and optional
storage system (Figure 1). The field of flat, sun-tracking mirrors called heliostats focus direct
normal solar radiation onto a receiver at the top of the tower, where a heat-transfer fluid is
heated. Then it is pumped to the power block. The power block generates steam that drives a
steam turbine and generator to convert the thermal energy to electricity. This is one of the key
technologies used to generate electric power in the recent past. The power tower uses a
Thermocline storage tank or a two-tank system to store the heat energy generated. The thermal
energy stored is dispatched at required intervals to generate electricity. This thermal energy
storage (a two-tank system or a latent heat thermal storage system) influences the cost of the
construction of this solar power tower plant. Since solar power towers are highly cost intensive
investment, it becomes important to get knowledge about the impact of a storage system
economically on the plant before even venturing in to the project. In this paper, the total installed
costs and the dependence of the storages is estimated to help understand the contributions of
each one of them in the costs.

Figure 4: - Schematic of a molten salt power tower showing major sub-systems

[1] Nomenclature TES Thermal Energy Storage LHTES Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage
SPTP Solar Power Tower Plant MW Megawatt electricity SAM System Advisor Model LCOE
Lovelies Cost of Electricity CEPCI Chemical Engineering Plant Cost Index PPI Producer Price
Index DC Direct Cost EPC Engineering Procurement Construction
 2. Simulation and economic estimation the project plant data and the indices are initially
fed in to the excel functions of the SAM (Figure 2). The labour costs, CEPCI and PPI
are taken from various sources for the year 2015. Custom modification of the SAM
excel functions would yield the total direct and indirect costs of the plant (Table 1&
Table 2) which are later fed in to the SAM software for a parametric simulation.

P oject Plant Data

Costs
 Design T rbine Gr ss Outpu
 Design Thermal Power
 Full Load Hours of TES
 Tota Land Area Custom modif ed
 Total Direct Costs S stem Adviso Model
 Total Reflective Area System Advisor Model
(SAM) S ftwar
 T wer Height
(SAM) Excel functi ns  T al Ind rect C sts

 Design T ermal Power

 T al Installed osts

 Receiver Design Thermal ower

Indices

 Labour Cost I dex

 Chemical Eng neer ng P ant Cost
Index (CEPCI 2015)
 Producer Price Index (2 15)

Direct Capital Cost Summary Parameters to Units

SAM
Site Improvements 15 $/m2
Heliostat Field 181 $/m2
Tower
Receiver 116 /kW-t
Thermal Energy Storage 26 $/kWh-t
Fossil Backup 0 $/kW
Balance of Plant 365 $/kW
Power Plant 1234 $/kW
Contingency 7.0 %
Indirect Capital Cost Summary Parameters to Units

SAM
 EPC and Owner Costs 11.1 % of DC
Land cost
Land 10000.0 per
acre
applied to %
DC's Sales Tax 78 of DC
Table 1: - Capital Cost Summary

Base Case 1

System Advisor Model (SAM)

So tware
In-House method

(Parametric Simulation)

Estimation of Costs of Latent

Estimat on of Two tank sto
Heat Storage System
age system

The tables show the constituents of the direct and indirect costs. During, the whole
simulation, CEPCI cost index is used for all the countries and dollar is used as the
currency to make the prices comparable. In this summary of the costs, the plant is
simulated without a fossil back up. Hence, its value is set to be zero. The cost of
contingency is also assumed as 7% of the total direct costs. All these value determined
are the output of the excel functions that are ready to be given as input in the SAM
software for further simulations.
Initially, seven different cases of solar power plant are simulated from seven different
locations. These locations are from in Mediterranean region, Germany and India. The
best case in terms of high capacity factor and least LCOE is chosen of all those cases.
The chosen best case is used for the parametric simulation. Before beginning with the
parametric simulation, the weather file of the best case is taken from the library of SAM.
In the parametric simulations, the input variables of design turbine gross output (MW)
and full load hours of TES are varied to determine the capacity factor and the total
installed costs. SAM-excel functions break down the total direct and indirect costs in to
its contributors. For the corresponding input, the SAM-excel also give the contribution of
TES (Two-tank system).
Using this percentage contribution for every load hours of TES (Two-tank system)
from the SAM excel, the corresponding contribution to the total installed costs is
 estimated (Figure 2). Data from literature are used to build a simple in-house excel tool
to estimate the equivalent cost of a latent heat storage system in place of the estimated
Two-tank system (Figure 3). In this in-house method, there is an assumption made as
per [2]. That is, the cost of latent heat thermal energy storage is assumed to cost 40% of
the two-tank system.
\

4.2 Results And Discussion

The parametric simulation generated the total installed costs of the solar power tower plant for
various turbine output in MW. The full storage hours is also varied from 0 to 10 hours. The
results are plotted in Figure 4. The total installed costs increases with increase in the turbine
output. Until the 40 MW mark, there is not a much difference between the total installed costs
for different full load storage hours. The difference is clearly visible after the 40 MW.
Considering the fact that all the intermediate values between full load hours of 2 and 10 would
fall in- between the two lines in the graph, the difference is too close. There is a small inflection
point in-between 30 MW and 50 MW. This inflection point is simply the outcome of the SAM
excel function. Because, of the same characteristics being in all the lines in-between full load
hours of 2 and 10 hours.

9.00E+08

8.00E+08

7.00E+08

6.00E+08

5.00E+08

4.00E+08

3.00E+08
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Design turbine gross output (MW)
2.00E+08
Full Load Hours of TES = 2 Full Load Hours of TES = 10
1.00E+08

0.00E+005: - Dependence of turbine gross output on total installed cost

Figure
$9, 00, 00,000.00

$8, 00, 00,000.00

$7, 00, 00,000.00

$6, 00, 00,000.00

$5, 00, 00,000.00

$4, 00, 00,000.00

$3, 00, 00,000.00

$2,00,00,000.00 0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Design turbine gross output (MW)
$1,00,00,000.00

Full $-
Load Hours of TES = 2 Full Load Hours of TES = 10

Figure 6 Dependence of turbine gross output on cost of thermal energy storage

 Conclusion

Due to the varying cost index with the location, time and the market, the estimates of
many of these values may vary with respect to time. But the intention of producing
such a simulation is to give firsthand information on decision making before the
construction of a plant. The dependences of the thermal energy storage on the installed
cost would help in decision making whether or not to include in an upcoming
construction.