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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Concentrated solar power generation using solar receivers

Inventive concentrated solar power systems using solar receivers, and related devices and methods, are generally described. Low pressure solar receivers are provided that function to convert solar radiation energy to thermal energy of a working fluid, e.g., a working fluid of a power generation or thermal storage system. In some embodiments, low pressure solar receivers are provided herein that are useful in conjunction with gas turbine based power generation systems.

Anderson, Bruce N.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Collaboration to Enable Higher Penetrations of Solar Power Generation Using the Natural Gas Pipeline System for Energy Storage (CRADA CRD-14-00567)

This unique project explored one possible solution for photovoltaic (PV) generation to become a reliable and dispatchable energy resource similar to conventional baseload fossil fuel electricity generation. Solar power generation is a renewable resource that varies naturally from day-to-day as well as seasonally. To use solar power as a baseload generation asset requires a flexible storage system that can recover power on both a daily and seasonal basis. Converting solar power to natural gas (i.e., first to hydrogen and then to methane) and having access to utility-scale storage in the natural gas network has the potential to make solar power generation a baseload asset. This will: 1) Increase the net energy yield from solar resources by increasing the effective capacity factor and maximize the energy produced during the assets’ lifetimes. 2) Improve the economics of energy storage for solar project developers, thereby accelerating the deployment of new solar generation. 3) Reduce the impact of increasing solar penetration on congestion of the electrical transmission system by shifting power delivery in time using the gas pipeline network for long-duration storage. 4) Reduce the impact of increasing solar generation on electrical distribution system control. 5) Offer alternative revenue sources for solar power generation beyond electricity including: hydrogen (H 2 ) production for stationary fuel cells and fuel cell electric vehicles, conversion of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) to methane (CH 4 ) as a direct drop-in replacement for fossil natural gas use, and transmission as high volumetrically-dense CH 4 for use in transportation, heating, power generation, chemical production or conversion back to H2 at the point of use. Additional work was added to this CRADA in modification 4 having a primary objective to characterize the performance of the electrolyzer, Southern California Gas (SoCalGas) bioreactor and balance of plant to demonstrate production of renewable natural gas (RNG) from renewable H 2 and CO 2 using single-cell, self-replicating organisms. The additional scope of work allowed researchers to ramp up gas flowrates and pressure of the system over the designed range to grow the cells and begin to show the load-following capabilities of this anaerobic gas fermentation process. These activities enabled the research team to predict system performance at much greater scales; namely 10’s of mega-watts (MWs) of electrolyzer nameplate capacity.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Malcolm Deployment Guide for Solar Power Generation Plants

This guide provides detailed instructions for deploying Malcolm in Solar Power Generation systems. It covers the deployment process, from understanding the network architecture of these systems to configuring network switches and Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) ports or mirror ports or TAPs. The guide also includes best practices for deploying Hedgehog sensors, another critical component in these systems. Following this guide, users can enhance network visibility, improve their system’s security, and effectively troubleshoot common issues.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2010

Feasibility Investigation for a Solar Power Generation Facility

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 states that by fiscal year 2013, at least 7.5% of the energy consumed by the government must be renewable energy. In an effort to help meet this goal, Johnson Space Center (JSC) is considering installing a solar power generation facility. The purpose of this project is to conduct a feasibility investigation for such a facility. Because Kennedy Space Center (KSC) has a solar power generation facility, the first step in this investigation is to learn about KSC's facility and obtain information on how it was constructed. After collecting this information, the following must be determined: the amount of power desired, the size of the facility, potential locations for it, and estimated construction and maintenance costs. Contacts with JSC's energy provider must also be established to determine if a partnership would be agreeable to both parties. Lastly, all of this data must be analyzed to decide whether or not JSC should construct the facility. The results from analyzing the data collected indicate that a 200 kW facility would provide enough energy to meet 1% of JSC's energy demand. This facility would require less than 1 acre of land. In the map below, potential locations are shown in green. The solar power facility is projected to cost $2 M. So far, the information collected indicates that such a facility could be constructed. The next steps in this investigation include contacting JSC's energy provider, CenterPoint Energy, to discuss entering a partnership; developing a life cycle cost analysis to determine payback time; developing more detailed plans; and securing funding.

Nathan, Lakshmi↗
NASA NTRS1981

Rankine engine solar power generation. I - Performance and economic analysis

Results of a computer simulation of the performance of a solar flat plate collector powered electrical generation system are presented. The simulation was configured to include locations in New Mexico, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Massachusetts, and considered a water-based heat-transfer fluid collector system with storage. The collectors also powered a Rankine-cycle boiler filled with a low temperature working fluid. The generator was considered to be run only when excess solar heat and full storage would otherwise require heat purging through the collectors. All power was directed into the utility grid. The solar powered generator unit addition was found to be dependent on site location and collector area, and reduced the effective solar cost with collector areas greater than 400-670 sq m. The sites were economically ranked, best to worst: New Mexico, North Dakota, Massachusetts, and Tennessee.

Gossler, A. A.↗
NASA NTRS1973

Solar power generation and distribution

The production of electricity from solar energy is discussed. The economics of the proposed generation and distribution systems are analyzed. The use of photovoltaics for converting solar energy to home heating is proposed. The problems of energy distribution are analyzed from the standpoint of equipment costs and complexity.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2021

Transparent Refractory Aerogels for Efficient Spectral Control in High–Temperature Solar Power Generation

Although spectrally selective materials play a key role in existing and emerging solar thermal technologies, temperature-related degradation currently limits their use to below 700 °C in vacuum and even lower temperatures in air. Here a solar-transparent refractory aerogel that offers stable performance up to 800 °C in air is demonstrated, which is significantly greater than its silica counterpart. This improved stability is attributed to the formation of a refractory aluminum silicate phase, which is synthesized using a conformal single cycle of atomic layer deposition within the high-aspect-ratio pores of silica aerogels. Furthermore, based on direct heat loss measurements, the transparent refractory aerogel achieves a receiver efficiency of 75% at 100 suns and an absorber temperature of 700 °C, which is a 5% improvement over the state of the art. Transparent refractory aerogels may find widespread applicability in solar thermal technologies by enabling the use of lower-cost optical focusing systems and eliminating the need for highly evacuated receivers. In particular, a shift to higher operating temperatures while maintaining a high receiver efficiency can enable the use of advanced supercritical CO 2 power cycles and ultimately translate to an ≈10% (absolute) improvement in solar-to-electrical conversion efficiency relative to existing linear concentrating systems.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2016

Solar Power Generation in Extreme Space Environments

The exploration of space requires power for guidance, navigation, and control; instrumentation; thermal control; communications and data handling; and many subsystems and activities. Generating sufficient and reliable power in deep space through the use of solar arrays becomes even more challenging as solar intensity decreases and high radiation levels begin to degrade the performance of photovoltaic devices. The Extreme Environments Solar Power (EESP) project goal is to develop advanced photovoltaic technology to address these challenges.

Solar Arrays↗
DOE OSTI2024

Power generation forecasting for solar plants based on Dynamic Bayesian networks by fusing multi-source information

A Dynamic Bayesian network (DBN) model for solar power generation forecasting in solar plants is proposed in this paper. The key idea is to fuse sensor data, operational indicators, meteorological data, lagged output power information, and model errors for more accurate short-term (e.g., hours) and mid-term (e.g., days to weeks) power generation forecasting. The proposed DBN augments automated data-driven structure learning with expert knowledge encoding using continuous and categorical data given constraints to represent causal relationships within a solar inverter system. Additionally, an error compensation mechanism is proposed to capture temporal fluctuation. The effectiveness of the DBN on solar power generation forecasting was evaluated by rolling window analysis with one-year testing data collected from a local solar plant. The proposed DBN is compared with four state-of-art methods including support-vector regression (SVR), k-nearest neighbors (kNN), artificial neural network (ANN), and long short-term memory (LSTM) models. The result show that the proposed DBN achieves better accuracy in general, and it is not as data-hungry as some neural network-based models. The proposed DBN is also shown to have robust and consistent forecasting power with different forecasting horizons. The accuracy is 92% - 95% from one hour to one week ahead forecasting.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Characterizing particle-based thermal storage performance using optical methods for use in next generation concentrating solar power plants

Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) generation is an attractive option for low-emission power generation; however, the high costs of thermal storage associated with concentrating solar create a large barrier for their use and adaptation into modern life. Lowering their operation costs, while maintaining high thermal storage and transfer performance is essential. Solid particle-based heat exchange systems can reduce CSP cost but are often less efficient. Efforts to increase their performance have led to use of binary size particle mixes. Presented is an optical-based thermal analysis technique used to measure near-wall thermal conductivity of particle beds essential in determining their heat exchanger efficiency. Modulated Photothermal Radiometry is used to make dynamic temperature measurements, allowing for the extraction of the most relevant thermal properties like thermal conductivity, specific heat, and effusivity. The system uses a modulated laser source causing a damped periodic heat flux, resulting in a frequency and thermal property dependent surface temperature, of which is measured using radiometry. Lock-In techniques are used to extrapolate the amplitude of the signal. Plotting the amplitude against the root angular frequency allows for effusivity measurement by ratio to a known sample. Using specific heat measurements from literature and density measurements, the thermal conductivity of the particle mixes can be calculated. The simplicity of MPTR to probe through the depth of the bed is ideal for use in CSP for dynamic thermal performance monitoring.

Corona, Javier↗
NASA NTRS1973

High voltage solar cell power generating system for regulated solar array development

A laboratory solar power system regulated by on-panel switches has been delivered for operating high power (3 kw), high voltage (15,000 volt) loads (communication tubes, ion thrusters). The modular system consists of 26 solar arrays, each with an integral light source and cooling system. A typical array contains 2560 series-connected cells. Each light source consists of twenty 500 watt tungsten iodide lamps providing plus or minus 5 per cent uniformity at one solar constant. An array temperature of less than 40 C is achieved using an infrared filter, a water cooled plate, a vacuum hold-down system, and air flushing.

Levy, E., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1974

High voltage solar cell power generating system

A laboratory solar power system regulated by on-panel switches has been delivered for operating high power (3 kW), high voltage (15,000 volt) loads (communication tubes, ion thrusters). The modular system consists of 26 solar arrays, each with an integral light source and cooling system. A typical array contains 2,560 series-connected cells. Each light source consists of twenty 500-watt tungsten iodide lamps providing plus or minus 5 percent uniformity at one solar constant. An array temperature of less than 40 C is achieved using an infrared filter, a water-cooled plate, a vacuum hold-down system, and air flushing.

Levy, E., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Space Station Freedom solar dynamic power generation

Viewgraphs on Space Station Freedom solar dynamic power generation are presented. Topics covered include: prime contract activity; key solar dynamic power module requirements; solar dynamic heat receiver technology; and solar concentrator advanced development.

Springer, T.↗
NASA NTRS1984

A Summary Description of a Computer Program Concept for the Design and Simulation of Solar Pond Electric Power Generation Systems

A solar pond electric power generation subsystem, an electric power transformer and switch yard, a large solar pond, a water treatment plant, and numerous storage and evaporation ponds. Because a solar pond stores thermal energy over a long period of time, plant operation at any point in time is dependent upon past operation and future perceived generation plans. This time or past history factor introduces a new dimension in the design process. The design optimization of a plant must go beyond examination of operational state points and consider the seasonal variations in solar, solar pond energy storage, and desired plant annual duty-cycle profile. Models or design tools will be required to optimize a plant design. These models should be developed in order to include a proper but not excessive level of detail. The model should be targeted to a specific objective and not conceived as a do everything analysis tool, i.e., system design and not gradient-zone stability.

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