Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Boyd, Matt (ORCID:0000000327053084).
William Xi and Mark Ruth of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), will present a new solar-electrolysis technoeconomic assessment capability: low-temperature and high-temperature electrolysis in the System Advisor Model (SAM) environment. They will also present analysis results including opportunities for solar-hydrogen systems to achieve the $2/kg hydrogen cost target.
Solar industrial process heat (SIPH) technologies, such as concentrating solar power collectors, could economically replace the steam or heat needs at many industrial sites by providing high-temperature heat transfer fluids (HTFs) such as pressurized water, synthetic-oil, or direct steam. Renewable thermal energy systems (RTES) could be hybridized with different renewable options e.g., flat plate collectors with parabolic trough collectors, or combined with existing heat supplies (e.g., fossil fuels), to give options for targeted SIPH applications, industrial decarbonization and the reduction of fuel consumption. Hybrid solutions and thermal energy storage will be important for the dispatch of heat at optimal times needed by the demand side of the buildings and industrial applications. At present, there is no integrated modeling tool for hybrid RTES, and this paper highlights the development of a renewable thermal hybridization framework for IPH use that is built from existing tools like System Advisor Model. The long-term vision for the framework (through significant further research) is to develop a coupled hybrid energy generation and cost analysis tool, where the tool could help the user in determining the most suitable and cost-effective technologies for their applications. Ongoing work will look to add costs for RTES options and further refinement on the selection of suitable technologies. This future tool could calculate the levelized cost of heat of various RTES hybrid options, by taking the user's solar resource, fuel costs, industrial heat demand profile, available land, and other factors into account to determine the applicability into their process.
Industrial decarbonization is a key area that must be accelerated, to foster the removal of fossil fuels from the provision of heat, especially at low temperatures less than 300 degrees C. This paper looks at the results of two case studies for understanding the economics and potential for renewable thermal energy systems (RTES), particularly in hybrid configurations to provide industrial process heat (IPH). The first case study looks at heat pumps for district heating, and the second, the use of linear Fresnel collectors (LFCs) coupled with phase change material (PCM) thermal energy storage (TES) for direct steam generation (DSG). Using district heat as an input for the heat pump, three cases were run harvesting energy from ambient water (5 degrees C), sewage water (20 degrees C), and a solar collector (35 degrees C). Accounting for elevated costs of infrastructure for each heat source, the levelized cost of heat (LCOH) of the first case study ranged from $4-$10 per million British Thermal Units (MMBTU). For the second case study modeling LFCs with PCM and TES, the results show that a LCOH of $9-$15 per MMBTU is possible, depending on the direct normal irradiance.
Industrial decarbonization is a key area that must be accelerated, to foster the removal of fossil fuels from the provision of heat, especially at low temperatures less than 300 degrees C. This paper looks at the results of two case studies for understanding the economics and potential for renewable thermal energy systems (RTES), particularly in hybrid configurations to provide industrial process heat (IPH). The first case study looks at heat pumps for district heating, and the second, the use of linear Fresnel collectors (LFCs) coupled with phase change material (PCM) thermal energy storage (TES) for direct steam generation (DSG). Using district heat as an input for the heat pump, three cases were run harvesting energy from ambient water (5 degrees C), sewage water (20 degrees C), and a solar collector (35 degrees C). Accounting for elevated costs of infrastructure for each heat source, the levelized cost of heat (LCOH) of the first case study ranged from $4-$15 per million British Thermal Units (MMBTU). For the second case study modeling LFCs with PCM and TES, the results show that a LCOH of $9-$15 per MMBTU is possible, depending on the direct normal irradiance.
The need for renewable heat in industry is vital for the next decade and beyond. Industrial decarbonization is a key area that must be accelerated, to foster the removal of fossil fuels from the provision of heat, especially at low temperatures. This paper looks at the development and results of case studies for understanding the economics and potential for renewable thermal energy systems (RTES), particularly in hybrid configurations to provide industrial process heat (IPH). For the case studies, these include non-concentrating e.g., heat pumps, and concentrating collectors e.g., parabolic trough collectors and direct steam generation (DSG)-linear Fresnel collectors (LFCs). The results show that a levelized cost of heat (LCOH) of $6-$8 per million British Thermal Units (MMBTU) is possible, depending on the direct normal irradiance (DNI) and the system sizing e.g., to increase the solar fractions. In Arizona for example, with a DNI of 7.36 kWh/m2/day, the base case for the DSG-LFC system with 6hrs of thermal energy storage could potentially meet a 1 MWth load 80% of the year.
Renewable thermal energy systems (RTES) could be hybridized with different renewable options (e.g., flat plate collectors (FPCs) with parabolic collectors), or combined with existing heat supplies (e.g., fossil fuels), to give options for targeted solar IPH applications, industrial decarbonization and the reduction of fuel consumption. Buildings and industrial thermal energy applications require different temperature ranges, quantities, and rates of thermal energy, and as such require flexible, cost competitive solutions, able to provide heat over various temperature ranges. Hybrid solutions and thermal energy storage (TES) will be important for the dispatch of heat at optimal times needed by the demand side of the buildings and industrial applications. A variety of tools and platforms, such as the System Advisor Model (SAM), can provide hourly thermal yield simulations from single renewable energy (RE) technology options, including FPCs or CSP for solar IPH. We have investigated a variety of approaches to hybrid system modeling for RTES at different temperatures or combinations of technologies and developed an initial framework. The hybridization framework starts by creating a heat stream and raising the temperature of that heat stream by various combinations of RE technologies and other sources such as fossil fuels, new fuels or electric heating in multiple stages, with options for TES and/or waste heat recovery (WHR).
Renewable thermal energy systems (RTES) harness renewable energy sources to provide services for space heating and cooling, district heating, domestic hot water, and industrial process heat (IPH). The use of low-pressure steam generated by the combustion of fossil fuels is common today to provide process heat for industrial facilities. Solar IPH (SIPH) technologies could economically replace the steam or heat needs at many industrial sites by providing high-temperature pressurized hot water, a heat transfer fluid (HTF) such as synthetic-oil, or direct steam (Kurup and Turchi, 2015). RTES could be hybridized with technology options or combined with the existing heat supply (e.g. fuels), to give options for targeted IPH application and the reduction of fuel consumption. This work has tested hybrid system modelling approaches. Initial results show when a natural gas (NG) burner that feeds an IPH application of 300°C, has both air and NG streams pre-heated with a solar field/RTES exit temperature of 180°C (via an HTF), a 13% NG offset is possible. NG offsets reach up to 26%, when the RTES exit temperatures are at 300°C for a given annual capacity factor of 24%. This can be even higher with addition of thermal energy storage (TES).