Leonardo Pelagotti
Energy Engineering Department, School of Engineering, Pisa University, Pisa, Italy
Kim Sørensen
Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
Thomas J. Condra
Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
Alessandro Franco
Energy Engineering Department, School of Engineering, Pisa University, Pisa, Italy
Download articlePublished in: Proceedings of the 55th Conference on Simulation and Modelling (SIMS 55), Modelling, Simulation and Optimization, 21-22 October 2014, Aalborg, Denmark
Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 108:16, p. 175-183
Published: 2014-12-09
ISBN: 978-91-7519-376-2
ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)
The project investigates a new design for a CSP plant steam generation system, the Coil Steam Generator (CSG). This system allows faster start-ups and therefore higher daily energy production from the Sun. An analytical thermodynamic simulation model of the evaporator and a mechanical analysis are developed to optimize the behavior of the system in different start-up scenarios. The results improve the effective life time (ELT) of the CSG, the thermal flexibility of the overall CSP plant to have faster start-ups. Sensitivity analysis carried out to understand the importance of start-up time, oil circuit pressure in the CSP plant and header thickness, show that these variables are important to determine the total state of stress in the headers, and therefore their effective life time. Applying the results of the optimization analysis means that, the oil headers are not critical anymore regarding the start-up process and can easily resist faster start-ups.