EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL STUDY OF LATENT HEAT THERMAL ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEMS ASSISTED BY HEAT PIPES FOR CONCENTRATED SOLAR POWER APPLICATION

Abstract

A desirable feature of concentrated solar power (CSP) with integrated thermal energy storage (TES) unit is to provide electricity in a dispatchable manner during cloud transient and non-daylight hours. Latent heat thermal energy storage (LHTES) offers many advantages such as higher energy storage density, wider range of operating temperature and nearly isothermal heat transfer relative to sensible heat thermal energy storage (SHTES), which is the current standard for trough and tower CSP systems. Despite the advantages mentioned above, LHTES systems performance is often limited by low thermal conductivity of commonly used, low cost phase change materials (PCMs). Research and development of passive heat transfer devices, such as heat pipes (HPs) to enhance the heat transfer in the PCM has received considerable attention. Due to its high effective thermal conductivity, heat pipe can transport large amounts of heat with relatively small temperature difference. The objective of this research is to study the charging and discharging processes of heat pipe-assisted LHTES systems using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and experimental testing to develop a method for more efficient energy storage system design. The results revealed that the heat pipe network configurations and the quantities of heat pipes integrated in a thermal energy storage system have a profound effect on the thermal response of the system. The optimal placement of heat pipes in the system can significantly enhance the thermal performance. It was also found that the inclusion of natural convection heat transfer in the CFD simulation of the system is necessary to have a realistic prediction of a latent heat thermal storage system performance. In addition, the effects of geometrical features and quantity of fins attached to the HPs have been studied.