Development of efficient and inexpensive thermal energy storage (TES) system for solar-thermal-electric power generation

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A Canadian R&D company, Innovative Solar Power (ISP), recently developed and patented a novel autonomous electricity generation system. This novel system stores solar energy in the thermal energy storage (TES) and then directly converts this thermal energy to electricity using Stirling engine. The autonomous electricity generation system being considered is CO2 free, environmentally benign and inexpensive technology to produce electricity using solar radiation, which is powerful renewable source of energy. One of the challenges in the production of the final hardware is to increase the overall efficiency of the system by geometry-optimization of the energy storage device and charging/discharging processes. In particular, optimization of proposed TES geometry and parameters is essential task to keep the cost of the system low. In the proposed project, using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models, numerical modeling of the unsteady heat transfer inside the TES applied for several charging/discharging cycles will be performed to optimize the geometry of TES coupled with the Stirling engine. The outcome of this collaboration will be numerical and semi-empirical models of the dynamic behavior of a 25kWh TES. Both models will be used to further improve the overall efficiency of the system and TES. Semi-empirical model developed and validated will allow ISP company and end-users of electricity generation system to optimize working parameters of TES without computationally expensive numerical simulations. The results of the project will also contribute significantly into the reduction of TES-production and TES-application costs. Furthermore, improved fundamental understanding of the heat transfer-dynamics inside TES will significantly contribute to technological innovations in the field of efficient conversion of the sun power or any heat stored to electricity for energy generation in Canada.