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Night sky cooling for concentrating solar power plants

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  • Dyreson, Ana
  • Miller, Franklin

Abstract

Concentrating solar power (CSP) plants are currently designed with either cooling towers or air-cooled condensers. These two alternatives have a trade off: cooling tower evaporative cooling systems use water, which is a scarce resource in the desert environments where CSP is implemented, but air-cooling results in decreased power plant performance. In this paper, a radiation-enhanced cooling system for thermal power plants is analyzed with a detailed heat transfer model and shown to be feasible for CSP. The proposed system consumes no water and has the potential to out-perform air-cooling. Heat transfer occurs by convection and radiation to the cold night temperatures of desert environments. The radiators are uncovered black panels with tubes of cooling fluid circulated to a cold storage system. The radiators’ performance is modeled using a two-dimensional finite difference model and the complete power plant system is modeled on an hourly basis using a standard power plant with thermal energy storage. If the night sky cooling system is the same size as the solar collector field, annual simulation shows that the system can provide over 90% of the required cooling. In addition, performance is improved compared to traditional air-cooling because the parasitic load for circulating water in the radiator system is about 1% of gross energy production while the parasitic load for an air-cooled power plant is about 4%. The night sky cooling system is a potential solution to the water issues that face CSP power plants and other power plants located in desert environments.

Suggested Citation

  • Dyreson, Ana & Miller, Franklin, 2016. "Night sky cooling for concentrating solar power plants," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 276-286.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:180:y:2016:i:c:p:276-286
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.07.118
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    2. Hu, Mingke & Zhao, Bin & Ao, Xianze & Su, Yuehong & Wang, Yunyun & Pei, Gang, 2018. "Comparative analysis of different surfaces for integrated solar heating and radiative cooling: A numerical study," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 360-369.
    3. Unterberger, Viktor & Lichtenegger, Klaus & Kaisermayer, Valentin & Gölles, Markus & Horn, Martin, 2021. "An adaptive short-term forecasting method for the energy yield of flat-plate solar collector systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    4. Bijarniya, Jay Prakash & Sarkar, Jahar & Maiti, Pralay, 2020. "Review on passive daytime radiative cooling: Fundamentals, recent researches, challenges and opportunities," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    5. Hu, Mingke & Zhao, Bin & Suhendri, & Ao, Xianze & Cao, Jingyu & Wang, Qiliang & Riffat, Saffa & Su, Yuehong & Pei, Gang, 2022. "Applications of radiative sky cooling in solar energy systems: Progress, challenges, and prospects," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    6. Farooq, Abdul Samad & Zhang, Peng & Gao, Yongfeng & Gulfam, Raza, 2021. "Emerging radiative materials and prospective applications of radiative sky cooling - A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    7. She, Xiaohui & Cong, Lin & Nie, Binjian & Leng, Guanghui & Peng, Hao & Chen, Yi & Zhang, Xiaosong & Wen, Tao & Yang, Hongxing & Luo, Yimo, 2018. "Energy-efficient and -economic technologies for air conditioning with vapor compression refrigeration: A comprehensive review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 232(C), pages 157-186.
    8. Luceño, José A. & Martín, Mariano, 2018. "Two-step optimization procedure for the conceptual design of A-frame systems for solar power plants," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 165(PB), pages 483-500.
    9. Zhao, Bin & Hu, Mingke & Ao, Xianze & Chen, Nuo & Xuan, Qingdong & Jiao, Dongsheng & Pei, Gang, 2019. "Performance analysis of a hybrid system combining photovoltaic and nighttime radiative cooling," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 252(C), pages 1-1.
    10. Lv, Song & Ji, Yishuang & Qian, Zuoqin & He, Wei & Hu, Zhongting & Liu, Minghou, 2021. "A novel strategy of enhancing sky radiative cooling by solar photovoltaic-thermoelectric cooler," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    11. Zhao, Dongliang & Martini, Christine Elizabeth & Jiang, Siyu & Ma, Yaoguang & Zhai, Yao & Tan, Gang & Yin, Xiaobo & Yang, Ronggui, 2017. "Development of a single-phase thermosiphon for cold collection and storage of radiative cooling," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 1260-1269.

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