Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: As states within the United States respond to future grid development goals, there is a growing demand for reliable and resilient nighttime generation that can be addressed by low-cost, long-duration energy storage solutions. This paper summarizes the findings of a study for the state of California that evaluated how molten-salt tower concentrating solar power (CSP) plants with thermal energy storage (TES) can be utilized to address the goals within the state established by Senate Bill 100. The study found that CSP exhibits deployment potential both in California and in the rest of the Western Interconnection and is utilized primarily to serve nighttime load. The plants are designed to collect and store energy during the day and then are dispatched to produce power at night. The paper presents a technoeconomic analysis that compares the cost of CSP to photovoltaics (PV) plus battery energy storage systems (BESS), provides an overview of capacity expansion modeling performed by NREL, and a screening analysis that identifies CSP siting potential in the U.S.
Institution: National Laboratory of the Rockies
Language: English
Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
Awards: G3787451411, ATHE PROJECT WILL FOCUS ON PERFORMING A HIGH-LEVEL SCREENING STUDY ASSESSMENT OF NEAR-TERM CSP TECHNOLOGIES THAT ARE OPTIMIZED TO ADDRESS CALIFORNIA’S SB100 CARBON REDUCTION GOALS. THE PROJECT TEAM WILL DEVELOP REFERENCE PLANT DESIGNS, CAPITAL AND O&M COST MODELS, AND PERFORMANCE MODELS FOR EACH CSP AND ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGY CONFIGURATION. THE GOAL WILL BE TO ENABLE INDIVIDUAL TECHNOLOGIES TO BE OPTIMIZED TO MEET THE MARKET OBJECTIVES AND THEN TO BE ABLE TO COMPARE THE COST AND PERFORMANCE OF TECHNOLOGIES ON A CONSISTENT BASIS. THE PROJECT WILL ALSO WILL FOCUS ON PERFORMING A MORE ACCURATE COST AND PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT OF A SELECTED CSP TECHNOLOGY TO SUPPORT CALIFORNIA’S SB100 GOALS. THE PROJECT TEAM WILL DEVELOP HIGHER FIDELITY COST MODELS AND CONDUCT A MORE IN-DEPTH DESIGN OPTIMIZATION OF THE CSP PLANT CONFIGURATION. FINALLY, THE PROJECT WILL WORK TO DISSEMINATE INFORMATION FROM THE STUDY TO KEY STAKEHOLDER GROUPS.
OpenAlex ID: W4416714100