Southwest Research Institute (SwRI, San Antonio, Texas, U.S.) and partner organizations have been awarded USD 12.3 million in two separate grants from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to develop new components for concentrating solar power (CSP) plants.

The DOE awarded SwRI and partners a USD 8.5 million grant to develop a high-efficiency supercritical CO2 hot gas turbo-expander for CSP plants, and a separate USD 3.8 million grant to SwRI and another group of  partners to develop a novel gas turbine combustor for hybrid CSP/natural gas generation. Both grants were provided through the DOE's SunShot Initiative.

"Over a three-year period, SwRI and its industry collaborators will design and develop a highly efficient, single or multi-stage sCO2 hot gas turbo-expander that will advance the state-of-the-art from laboratory size (technology readiness level 3) to a full TRL6 mega-watt scale prototype," states SwRI Program Director and Project Manager Dr. Klaus Brun.

Need for operation over a wide range of load conditions

General Electric Company (Fairfield, Connecticut, U.S.), Bechtel Marine Propulsion Corporation (Frederick, Maryland, U.S.) and Thar Energy LLC (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.) will work with SwRI on the design of the CO2 hot gas turbo-expander.

SwRI notes that due to the cyclical nature of CSP generation, a supercritical CO2 hot gas turbo-expander must be able to operate at high temperatures and pressures over a wide range of load conditions while maintaining a high efficiency.

The product must also be able to handle rapid transient heat input swings as well as having very fast start-up capabilities to optimize the availability of the plant online.

Project aims to increase temperature of turbine operation

SwRI will partner with Oak Ridge National Laboratories (Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.), the German Aerospace Center (Bonn, Germany) and San Diego State University (San Diego, California, U.S.) on development of the gas turbine combustor.

The institute notes that the steam generated by conventional CSP plants is limited to around 400 degrees Celsius, which yields roughly 40% thermal efficiencies, but that much higher efficiencies are possible with gas turbines.

The project aims to combine the advantages of gas turbine power plants with CSP plants by operating the gas turbine at up to 1,000 degrees Celsius combustor air inlet temperatures.

Both projects follow similar timelines. Both will be conducted in three phases, beginning with a design phase in August 2012 and continuing through component fabrication and testing, to be completed in 2015.

2012-07-31 | Courtesy: SwRI; Image Source: Siemens | solarserver.com © Heindl Server GmbH

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