IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v17y2024i18p4541-d1475002.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Heat Supply to Industrial Processes via Molten Salt Solar Concentrators

Author

Listed:
  • Marco D’Auria

    (ENEA—Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, 5 Via Anguillarese, 301, 00123 Rome, Italy)

  • Roberto Grena

    (ENEA—Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, 5 Via Anguillarese, 301, 00123 Rome, Italy)

  • Michela Lanchi

    (ENEA—Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, 5 Via Anguillarese, 301, 00123 Rome, Italy)

  • Raffaele Liberatore

    (ENEA—Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, 5 Via Anguillarese, 301, 00123 Rome, Italy)

Abstract

About one-third of world energy production is destined to the industrial sector, with process heat accounting for about 70% of this demand; almost half of this quota is required by endothermic processes operating at temperatures above 400 °C. Concentrated solar thermal technology, thanks to cost-effective high-temperature thermal energy storage solutions, can respond to the renewable thermal energy needs of the industrial sector, thus supporting the decarbonization of hard-to-abate processes. Particularly, parabolic trough technology using binary molten salts as heat transfer fluid and storage medium, operating up to 550 °C, could potentially supply a large part of the high-temperature process heat required by the industry. In this work, four industrial processes, representative of the Italian industrial context, that are well suited for integration with molten salt concentrators are presented and discussed, conceiving for each considered process a specific coupling solution with the solar plant, sizing the solar field and the thermal storage unit, and computing the cost of the process heat and its variation with the storage capacity. Considering cost data from the literature associated with the pre-COVID-19 era, an LCOH comprising the range 5–10 c€/kWh th was obtained for all the cases studied, while taking into account more updated cost data, the calculated LCOH varies from 7 to 13 c€/kWh th .

Suggested Citation

  • Marco D’Auria & Roberto Grena & Michela Lanchi & Raffaele Liberatore, 2024. "Heat Supply to Industrial Processes via Molten Salt Solar Concentrators," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(18), pages 1-17, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:18:p:4541-:d:1475002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/18/4541/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/18/4541/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Giaconia & Anna Chiara Tizzoni & Salvatore Sau & Natale Corsaro & Emiliana Mansi & Annarita Spadoni & Tiziano Delise, 2021. "Assessment and Perspectives of Heat Transfer Fluids for CSP Applications," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-25, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alberto Giaconia & Irena Balog & Giampaolo Caputo, 2021. "Hybridization of CSP Plants: Characterization of a Molten Salt Heater for Binary and Ternary Nitrate Salt Mixtures Fueled with Gas/Biogas Heaters," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-18, November.
    2. Łukasz Bartela & Paweł Gładysz & Jakub Ochmann & Staffan Qvist & Lou Martinez Sancho, 2022. "Repowering a Coal Power Unit with Small Modular Reactors and Thermal Energy Storage," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-28, August.
    3. David Saldivia & Robert A. Taylor, 2023. "A Novel Dual Receiver–Storage Design for Concentrating Solar Thermal Plants Using Beam-Down Optics," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-23, May.
    4. Sylvain Rodat & Richard Thonig, 2024. "Status of Concentrated Solar Power Plants Installed Worldwide: Past and Present Data," Clean Technol., MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-14, March.
    5. Starke, Allan R. & Cardemil, José M. & Bonini, Vinicius R.B. & Escobar, Rodrigo & Castro-Quijada, Matías & Videla, Álvaro, 2024. "Assessing the performance of novel molten salt mixtures on CSP applications," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 359(C).
    6. Prestigiacomo, Claudia & Giaconia, Alberto & Proietto, Federica & Caputo, Giampaolo & Balog, Irena & Ollà, Egnazio & Terranova, Chiara Freni & Scialdone, Onofrio & Galia, Alessandro, 2024. "Concentrated solar heat for the decarbonization of industrial chemical processes: a case study on crude oil distillation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:18:p:4541-:d:1475002. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.