Proceedings of the 26th National and 4th International ISHMT-ASTFE Heat and Mass Transfer Conference

December 17-20, 2021, IIT Madras, Chennai-600036, Tamil Nadu, India

IHMTC2021–617

Concentrating Solar Powered Transcritical CO2 Power Generation Cycle for the Union
Territory of Ladakh, India

Syed J Hoque1, Pramod Kumar1,2 Pradip Dutta1,2

1
Thermal Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering,2Interdisciplinary Centre for Energy Research
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore-560012, India

ABSTRACT
High solar irradiation, cloud-free dry climate, abundant
barren land, and low ambient temperature make Ladakh UT
suitable for concentrating solar thermal power plants (CSP).
The study presents a comprehensive analysis of a 10 MW
transcritical CO2 Rankine cycle power tower CSP plant. Low
ambient temperature of the region allows transcritical
operation, which provides high cycle efficiency. The study
focuses on four aspects, viz. solar field, thermal energy storage
(TES), thermodynamic cycle simulation, and off-design
performance analysis. The modelling and optimization of the
solar field are undertaken to capture the diurnal and annual
variations of DNI levels using open source software SAM.
Molten salt TES is integrated to overcome the dynamic
variations of solar energy by providing stable operations and
additional hours. Different storage sizes, starting from no
storage to 12 hours storage on the solar field size and
specifications, are also assessed. An in-house algorithm is
developed for the thermodynamic cycle simulation at design
and off-design operations. The effect of ambient temperature
variations on the low side saturation pressure, cycle efficiency,
and power output is evaluated. The proposed plant offers annual
optical efficiency of 45.4%, thermal efficiency of 38%, and
overall efficiency of 17.1%, respectively.
Ladakh region over the years [1, 3], commercial-scale solar
power plants in India are only limited to states like Gujrat,
Rajasthan, and Haryana [4].
Concentrating solar power (CSP) technology uses mirrors
systematically arranged to focus solar irradiance to high-
temperature receivers that capture the energy for power
generation. There are various mechanisms to capture solar
radiation as parabolic trough collectors, linear Fresnel
reflectors, solar power towers, and parabolic dish systems. The
solar power tower (also known as central receiver) system is
one of the most matured CSP technologies for high temperature
heat generation, where the system operates in the temperature
range of 300 to 1000 °C [5]. The conversion mechanism of solar
energy to electricity is fundamentally similar to any traditional
thermal power plant except for solar energy as the source of
heat.

Keywords: Renewable energy, Supercritical CO2, Thermal

storage, Recuperator, Thermodynamic cycle simulation.

1. INTRODUCTION
Ladakh UT, India, has abundant solar radiation throughout
the year due to its cloud-free dry climate. This region is situated
at an average 34 °N latitude, enabling yearly average direct
normal irradiation (DNI) above 6.5 kWh/m 2/day [1, 2]. High
solar DNI and abundance of fallow land make this region
suitable for concentrating solar power (CSP) generation. On the
other hand, lower ambient temperature (Tamb) due to higher
elevation (~3000 m) makes this region favorable for thermal
power generation. The mean temperature of Leh city is 5 °C and
varies between -8 °C to 15 °C [2] annually, whereas remote
areas as Nubra valley, Pangong lake records further lower
ambient temperature. Figure 1 shows the annual variation of
DNI and ambient temperature of Leh city. Although many
researchers evaluated the superior solar energy potential of the
Figure 1: Annual variation of average ambient
temperature and DNI of Leh city, Ladakh
CO2 is gaining popularity amongst researchers as the
potential working fluid for the next generation thermal power
plants. Although the early works on CO2 cycles were carried
out for space and nuclear power [6, 7], its applicability for solar
power has been explored by many researchers [8–10]. CO2 has
a lower critical temperature of 31.1 °C, which allows
transcritical cycle operations as the ambient temperature of
Ladakh is consistently below this critical temperature.
In a transcritical Rankine cycle, the expansion process
occurs at the supercritical state, whereas the compression
process is carried out at liquid phase. CO2 at its supercritical
state exhibits excellent heat transfer properties and chemical

1
stability over a wide range of pressures and temperatures,
enabling efficient and simple turbine design. On the other hand,
liquid phase compression significantly reduces required
compression power, ultimately increasing cycle thermal
efficiency.
tCO2 CSP plants simultaneously require high DNI with low
ambient temperature for cost-effective power generation. The
rare occurrence of high DNI with low ambient temperature
limits the applicability of tCO2 CSP plants. Hence, only a little
literature is available on tCO2 CSP plants, whereas sCO2 CSP
plants are extensively explored.
Chacartegui et al. [11] proposed three sCO2 and tCO2 cycle
layouts with central receiver CSP plants and showed their
potential to outperform conventional CSP plants. AlZahrani et
al. [12] investigated a tCO2 CSP plant with a parabolic trough
collector and showed a promising thermal efficiency of 34%.
Song et al. [13] and Chen et al. [14] explored tCO2 cycles for
low temperature flat plate collector uses and showed their
competitive advantage over Organic Rankine Cycles.
This study proposes a 10MW power tower CSP plant using
tCO2 Rankine cycle for the UT of Ladakh, India. A detailed
analysis of the various aspects of the plant as solar field layout,
TES capacity, power cycle optimization, and off-design
performance are presented.
2. DESCRIPTION OF PROPOSED PLANT
Figure 2 shows the thermodynamic layout of the proposed
power plant. The main aspects of the proposed plant can be
broadly divided into two parts
a. Solar field
b. tCO2 power generation cycle
The working fluid of the solar field is molten solar salt, whereas
the power generation cycle uses CO2. A molten salt-to-CO2 heat
exchanger is used to transfer heat from the solar field to the
power generation cycle.
Figure 2: Thermodynamic layout of the proposed
10MW CSP tCO2 Rankine cycle power plant
2.1 Solar field
Figure 2(a) shows the thermodynamic representation of the
solar field. The solar field primarily consists of three modules -
heliostat field, thermal energy storage, and thermal energy
transmission.
2
The heliostat field is a systematically arranged array of
mirrors that redirects and focuses sunlight on the receiver of the
power tower. A heat transfer fluid (HTF) is circulated through
the solar receiver, which captures the thermal energy by
increasing its temperature. The heliostat field size, layout, and
specification are governed by solar radiation availability, TES
capacity, and power generation cycle characteristics. The
energy yield assessment of the proposed plant is performed
using System Advisor Model (SAM) [15], open-source
software from NREL. The operating conditions used for the
generation of the heliostat field are shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Design conditions used for solar field
generation
Parameters Unit Value
Solar multiple - 2
TES capacity hour 6
Attenuation factor % 3.5
Nan-solar field land area acre 45
Max. allowable flux density W/m2 1050
Solar salt comprises 60% sodium nitrate (NaNO3) and 40%
potassium nitrate (KNO3), is used as both the heat transfer fluid
and thermal energy storage medium. The solar salt freezes at a
temperature below 230 °C, and becomes chemically unstable
above 600 °C, making a stable operating range between 230 to
600 °C. In this study, the lowest and highest molten salt
temperature is capped between 260 °C and 560 °C,
respectively.
Molten solar salt is used for transferring thermal energy
from the heliostat field to the CO2 power generation cycle. Also,
thermal energy is stored using a two-tank (high temperature and
low temperature) TES configuration. The TES is designed to
extend plant operation by 6 hours after the shutdown of the
heliostat field. Cold molten salt from the LT TES is circulated
through the power tower receiver (state 10 – 11), where it
receives heat (QSR) from the heliostat field and increases the
temperature. The hot molten salt is then stored in the HT TES
(state 11 – 7) and circulated through the molten salt-to-CO2 heat
exchanger. After transferring QHX to the heat exchanger (state 7
– 8), the cold molten salt is pumped to the LT TES using the
auxiliary pump (state 8 – 9). The use of HT and LT TES makes
the CO2 power cycle insensitive to the intermittent nature of
solar energy. The small power consumption by the auxiliary
pump is neglect in the study.
2.2 Transcritical CO2 cycle
A tCO2 Rankine cycle with internal recuperation is used as
the power generation cycle. The thermodynamic layout is
shown in Figure 2(b), and the corresponding Temperature-
entropy diagram is shown in Figure 3.
Referring to Figure 2(b), liquid CO2 is compressed from
states 1 to 2 using the pump.
𝑊𝑝 = 𝑚𝐶𝑂2 (ℎ2 − ℎ1 ) (1)
 The temperature (T1) and pressure (P1) at state 1 depend on
the ambient temperature (Tamb). T1 is assumed to be 5 °C higher
than Tamb to facilitate effective heat rejection (Qout) in the
condenser. P1 is the liquid saturation pressure corresponding to
T1 to ensure liquid entry into the pump. The working fluid is
preheated in the internal recuperator (state 2 – 3) and then
passes through the heat exchanger, where QHX is transferred
(state 3 – 4) to the bottoming cycle from the hot molten salt.
3.1 Solar field
Figure 4 shows the solar field layout of the proposed power
plant. As Ladakh is located in the northern hemisphere, the
inner loop is offset towards the south by around 60 m to have a
greater number of heliostats on the north side of the central
power tower. Design conditions listed in Table 1 are used to
generate the heliostat field.

𝑄𝐻𝑋 = 𝑚𝑀𝑆 (ℎ7 − ℎ8 ) = 𝑚𝐶𝑂2 (ℎ4 − ℎ3 ) (2)

𝑊𝑡 = 𝑚𝐶𝑂2 (ℎ4 − ℎ5 ) (3)

The supercritical CO2 is then expanded in the turbine (state

4 – 5) to generate useful work(Wt). Due to the typical nature of
sCO2, the near isothermal expansion of sCO2 inside the turbine
leads to high thermal energy at the turbine exit. An internal
recuperator is used to recover this energy (Qr) (state 5 – 6) and
preheat the working fluid before entering the heat exchanger,
significantly improving the cycle thermal efficiency.
Figure 4: Heliostat field of the proposed plant
𝑄𝑅 = 𝑚𝐶𝑂2 (ℎ3 − ℎ2 ) = 𝑚𝐶𝑂2 (ℎ6 − ℎ2 ) (4)
The heliostat field consists rectangular mirrors with a total
Residual heat (Qout) is then rejected to the ambient using a
105,440 m2 of reflective area. Table 2 shows the optimized
suitable condenser (state 6 – 1). The power required to cool the
design point specification of the heliostat field considering 6
condenser is not taken into account.
hours of TES.
𝑄𝑜𝑢𝑡 = 𝑚𝑐𝑜2 (ℎ6 − ℎ1 ) (5) Table 2: Specification of the heliostat field

Parameters Unit Value

Dimension of heliostat m 10×10
Heliostat area acre 205
Number of heliostats - 1068
Tower height m 57.1
Receiver height m 5.5
Receiver diameter m 5.6
TES tank volume m3 1508
Annual optical efficiency % 45.4

Table 3 presents the effect of TES capacity variation on the

heliostat field area, number of heliostats, and tower height. TES
capacity denoted the duration of full load operations by using
the TES only.

Figure 3: Temperature-entropy diagram of the tCO2 Table 3: Effect of TES capacity on solar field
Rankine power cycle
TES capacity Number of Solar field Tower
An in-house algorithm is used for steady-state [hour] heliostats area [acre] height [m]
thermodynamic simulation, optimization, and off-design 0 652 149 48.8
performance evaluation of the proposed plant. The algorithm is 2 784 158 51.3
developed in MATLAB® [16] and integrated with the 4 924 182 53
REFPROP® [17] database for the fluid property. The results 6 1068 205 57.1
are also verified with industry-standard thermodynamic cycle 8 1214 219 60.4
simulation software AXCYCLED® [18]. 10 1378 239 63.4
12 1520 265 67.7
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This section presents the design point and off-design The results show a linear relationship between the TES
analysis results of the proposed 10MW power plant. capacity with other heliostat field parameters. The selection of

3
TES capacity depends on the required operation duration, area control system. In this study, ‘ ’ point is selected
and cost. as the design point of operation. Table 5 shows the pressure and
temperature of each state point corresponding to Figure 2 at the
3.2 Transcritical CO2 Rankine cycle design condition.
Table 4 lists the operating conditions used in the design Table 5: Design point pressure and temperature
point thermodynamic cycle simulation. across each component
Table 4: Design point operating conditions of tCO2
Rankine cycle State points
CO2 side
1 2 3 4 5 6
Parameters Symbol Unit Value Pressure (bar) 46 200 196 192 47.9 46.9
Turbine inlet temperature T4 °C 550 Temperature (°C) 10 26.3 245 550 399 31.3
Ambient temperature Tamb °C 5 State points
Pump inlet pressure P1 bar 46 Molten salt side
7 8 9 10 11
Pump outlet pressure P2 bar > 74 Pressure (bar) 3 2 12 3 3
Pump isentropic efficiency ηp % 80 [19] Temperature (°C) 560 260 260 260 560
Turbine isentropic efficiency ηt % 85 [19]
Pinch of recuperator Δ R °C 5 [19] Table 6 lists the energy balance and massflow rate of each
Pinch of heat exchanger Δ HX °C 10 component at the design condition.
Pressure drop of recuperator Table 6: Design point energy balance and massflow
ΔP/Pin % 2 [19]
/ heat exchanger (CO2 side) rates

The turbine inlet temperature is fixed at 550 °C throughout Parameters Symbol Unit Value
the analysis as the maximum molten salt temperature is 560 °C. Heat exchanger heat transfer QHX MW 26.3
A pinch temperature of 10 °C is required in the molten salt-to- Recuperator heat transfer QR MW 28.9
CO2 heat exchanger for effective heat transfer [11]. The pump Condenser heat rejection Qout MW 16.3
inlet pressure depends on the liquid saturation pressure Pump power in Wp MW 1.5
corresponding to the pump inlet temperature. At design Turbine power out Wt MW 11.5
condition Tamb = 5 °C, that means T1 = 10 °C and P1 comes out CO2 massflow rate mCO2 Kg/s 68.9
to be 46 bar. On the other hand, P2 is varied from 74 to 600 bar Molten salt massflow rate mMS Kg/s 58
to find the optimum cycle thermal efficiency (η). Figure 5
shows the variation of η for various P2 values. η initially The annual and diurnal variation of the ambient temperature
increases with P2, then reaches a maximum of 0.41 at P2 around plays a significant role in plant dynamics. Required heat input,
415 bar and decreases after that. pump inlet pressure, and massflow rates of CO2 and molten salt
need to be calibrated with Tamb variations for stable operations.
Figure 6 shows the effect of ambient temperature variation on
the cycle thermal efficiency and required heat while keeping the
same net power output of 10MW.

Figure 5: Effect of pump discharge pressure on η

The figure also shows the second derivative of η with

respect to P2, which changes its slope at P2 around 200 bar. At
P2 = 200 bar η = 0.38, whereas at P2 = 415 bar η = 0.41; that
means an increase of 215 bar pressure provides a meager
increase of 3% in η. As the capital and running cost of the high-
pressure system is more than performance gain, operating the
plant at P2 = 200 bar is a more economical choice. Apart from
cost benefits derived from lower operating pressures, reducing
pump discharge pressure also facilitates a broader operation
span, thus reducing the associated anomalies of a stringent
4
Figure 6: Effect of Tamb variations on cycle heat input
and efficiencies
The figure shows that the cycle efficiency is linearly
increasing with the lower ambient temperature and vice versa.
As the cycle efficiency is higher at lower ambient temperatures,
the corresponding required QHX is also lower.
 Figure 7 shows how P1 needs to be calibrated to ensure DNI D
liquid CO2 entry into the pump inlet for varying ambient TES
temperatures. P1 is always the liquid saturation pressure sCO2
corresponding to T1 (5 °C greater than Tamb). The figure also tCO2 -
shows the CO2 and molten salt massflow rate variation to ensure LT
10MW net power output. The variation of CO2 massflow rate is HT
much higher compared to the molten salt massflow rate, which
suggests a much greater control required for the CO2 massflow Parameters/variables
rate.
T [°C]
P [bar]
η / -
m [ /]
h [ J/ ]
s [ J/ -K]
ΔT [°C]
ΔP [bar]
W [ W]
Q [ W]

Subscripts
t
p
Figure 7: Effect of Tamb variations on P1, mCO2, and mMS HX
SR v
R
4. CONCLUSIONS
out j
The study has presented a detailed assessment of a 10 MW amb
power tower (central receiver) CSP power plant for Ladakh, 1-11
India. The proposed plant consists of 1206 heliostats, each
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