Performance comparison of CSP system with different heat transfer and storage fluids at multi-time scales by means of system advisor model

Many novel molten salts and their based nanofluids have been proposed, and their thermophysical properties have been extensively studied. However, their implications to performance and economic of concentrated solar power (CSP) systems are not well understood. This study has compared the performance of CSP generation systems by applying nitrate, carbonate, chloride and their based nanofluids. Based on the selected site of the study, Delingha City, Qinghai Province of China, different heat transfer fluids (HTFs) were applied to both parabolic trough collectors (PTC) systems and solar power tower (SPT) systems upon on their maximum operating temperatures. The solar multiple (SM) and thermal energy storage full-load hours of solar salt PTC and SPT systems were determined as the benchmarks, and then the results in each CSP system were compared to the benchmarks at annual, monthly and daily time scales, respectively. The results show that by comparing against the solar salt PTC systems with other HTFs, the nitrate nanofluid PTC system has the best performance, owing to an increase of 21.68% in its annual electricity generation (AEG) and an improvement of 6.0% in capacity factor (CF); among the five SPT systems, on the other hand, the performance of carbonate nanofluid SPT system is the best, and its AEG and CF are improved by 24.47% and 13.15% respectively while comparing with the solar salt SPT system. This work lends a fresh perspective to design and evaluate new CSP systems applying advanced molten salts and their based nanofluids.