Solar Tower with Thermal Energy Storage: A “Consolidated” Technology with a Single Plant of Decent Size Built on Earth Producing Less Than 30% of the Planned Electricity
Guest essay by Albert Parker
If we consider the latest (2017) National Renewable Energy Laboratory Annual Technology Baseline data, [1] and [2], they say current representative technology for concentrating solar power is molten-salt power towers with 10 hours two-tank thermal energy storage. They admit the first (and only) large molten-salt power tower plant with 10 hours of storage is Crescent Dunes, 110 MW, commissioned in 2015.
Their concentrated solar power workbook is based on purely hypothetical solar towers with direct two-tank 10 hours thermal energy storage supposed to deliver annual capacity factors (ratio of actual electricity delivered in a year vs. the product of the installed capacity by the number of hours in a year) largely exceeding the 50% mark, more precisely 56%…
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