EU-Project NEWSOL - Thermal storage in concrete for concentrated solar power plants
Funding Source: external page SERI, external page EU-H2020
Project website: external page NEWSOL
Partners: external page http://www.newsol.uevora.pt/partners/
Project Head: Fabian Dähler
The NEWSOL project addresses the specific challenge towards high efficiency solar energy harvesting by advanced materials solutions and architectures that are in line with those specified in the European Union’s external page SET-plan. Its main objective is to develop advanced materials solutions based on innovative storage media and concepts for Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) up to validation in field of their performance by real time monitoring.
The main challenges of NEWSOL is to develop two sensible heat storage systems based both on a single-tank with thermocline and solid state heat storage in concrete and aimed to a temperature range from 290 ºC up to 550 ºC. The main difference from the several existing proposals is to implement a single-tank system constructed in concrete instead of the classic metallic construction. A further goal is to test newly developed materials with real load and to develop control schemes in order to improve the performance of the storage, thus preventing thermocline degradation due to cycling. These materials include: high thermal performance concrete (including carbon nanostructures), molten salts (including nanoparticles), and filler Material re-usage.
