Overview

Thermal energy storage for solar

power production
Nathan P. Siegel
Solar energy is the most abundant persistent energy resource. It is also an intermittent one available for only a fraction of each day while the demand for
electric power never ceases. To produce a significant amount of power at the utility scale, electricity generated from solar energy must be dispatchable and able
to be supplied in response to variations in demand. This requires energy storage
that serves to decouple the intermittent solar resource from the load and enables
around-the-clock power production from solar energy. Practically, solar energy
storage technologies must be efficient as any energy loss results in an increase
in the amount of required collection hardware, the largest cost in a solar electric
power system. Storing solar energy as heat has been shown to be an efficient,
scalable, and relatively low-cost approach to providing dispatchable solar electricity. Concentrating solar power systems that include thermal energy storage
(TES) use mirrors to focus sunlight onto a heat exchanger where it is converted
to thermal energy that is carried away by a heat transfer fluid and used to drive
a conventional thermal power cycle (e.g., steam power plant), or stored for later
use. Several approaches to TES have been developed and can generally be categorized as either thermophysical (wherein energy is stored in a hot fluid or solid
medium or by causing a phase change that can later be reversed to release heat)
or thermochemical (in which energy is stored in chemical bonds requiring two or
more reversible chemical reactions). C 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
How to cite this article:

WIREs Energy Environ 2012, 1: 119131 doi: 10.1002/wene.10

THE POTENTIAL OF SOLAR POWER

PRODUCTION

he amount of solar energy striking the earth is

vastly larger than the current global consumption of primary energy resources for electric power
production. With respect to electric power, about
1.8 104 TWhe of electricity is consumed globally
on an annual basis. In contrast, the amount of solar power striking the earth is about 1.7 105 TW
continuously,1 or 1.5 109 TWhth annually, the distribution of which is illustrated in Figure 1.2 Not all of
this energy can be utilized in a cost-effective manner
owing to a number of factors, including the quality of
the local solar resource, rough terrain, and restrictions
on development. The technically developable solar
resource appropriate for concentrating solar power

Correspondence to: nate.siegel@bucknell.edu

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Bucknell University,
Lewisburg, PA, USA.
DOI: 10.1002/wene.10

Volume 1, September/October 2012

(CSP) has been estimated to be capable of producing

3 106 TWhe/year, the global distribution of which
is shown in Figure 2.2 An analysis of the resource
potential CSP generation in the Southwestern United
States indicates that electric production of 2.1 103
TWhe/year is possible.3

Meeting Energy Demands

at the Utility Scale
In general, solar energy is a good match for intermediate load power even without storage. However,
either storage and/or hybridization with fossil energy
are needed to accommodate baseload and peaking operation. Figure 3 shows a representative utility load
curve for a summer day along with the normalized
power output from a CSP plant operating in one
case with storage and in the other without storage.
Much of the intermediate load profile, which peaks
around 5 PM in this example, can be met using solar
energy without storage (in this case, profile refers
to the shape of the load curve, not necessarily its

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F I G U R E 1 | The global distribution of solar energy expressed as an annual averaged sum of direct normal insolation (DNI)2 . This represents the
amount of solar energy that could be intercepted by a collector tracking the sun in two axes, such as a parabolic dish. Source: DLR (www.dlr.de).
(Reprinted by permission from Ref. 2. Copyright 2009, F. Trieb.)

F I G U R E 2 | The global distribution of solar energy resources that could be developed for power production. This map has been filtered relative
to Figure 1 and shows only those geographic areas that satisfy a number of criteria related to land use, topography, infrastructure, and other issues
impacting development2 . Source: DLR (www.dlr.de). (Reprinted by permission from Ref. 2. Copyright 2009, F. Trieb.)

120

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Thermal energy storage for solar power production

F I G U R E 3 | An illustration of a typical utility load curve compared with the power output from a solar energy plant operating either with or
without thermal energy storage.

magnitude). Loads between 5 PM and 6 AM, when

sunlight is not available, can only be met by including
thermal energy storage (TES).
The worldwide installed capacity of grid connected photovoltaic (PV) and CSP systems producing electricity for grid consumption is estimated to be
48 TWhe4 assuming a 25% capacity factor. This is
roughly 0.3% of current consumption. At this level of
market share, energy storage for solar power is not required from a grid operability perspective as conventional power plants can offset lost production from
solar at night or during periods of bad weather. However, as solar and other variable generation technologies, such as wind power, begin to make up a larger
share of the production market, it will be increasingly
more important that power production from these
systems be both reliable and dispatchable.
The importance of reliability is one that any
electric power consumer can appreciate. From the
perspective of power utilities, reliability (or firm capacity) is also important and more value is assigned
to technologies that can produce power whenever
it is needed or at least with a certain amount of
predictability.5 Dispatchability is a component of reliable operation as it enables generation to be matched
to variable demand. Conventional power systems include a certain amount of dispatchabiltiy to meet
intermediate and peak loads. However, the rate at
which power generation can be varied is constrained.

Volume 1, September/October 2012

Denholm and Hand6 show that as more variable generation from renewables is brought into the market,
the ability of the grid to deal with variations in the
amount of power produced from these sources will
become a technical challenge unless grid flexibility is
improved. One solution is to include energy storage
which improves the flexibility of the power supply
grid in general and enables more production from renewables, thus reducing the level of curtailment seen
in wind and solar power systems deployed today.

The Advantages of TES

There are many ways to store energy produced from
the sun. Each of them involves some degree of energy loss during both the charge and discharge processes. Keeping these losses small is an important element of any practical energy storage system. The
reason is fairly straightforward: power production is
tied directly to solar collection area. The greater the
losses in the storage system, the larger the collection
area must be to make up for those losses. In utilityscale PV systems, the cost of the collector (modules) is
60% of the total system cost.7 For CSP, the mirrors
used for collection account for 4060% of the system cost depending on the platform.8 In the case of
TES using relatively inexpensive molten nitrate salts, a
roundtrip storage efficiency, energy output divided by
energy input, of greater than 98% was demonstrated

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F I G U R E 4 | Estimated thermal conversion efficiency (heat to mechanical work) for power cycles either in use or under consideration for
concentrating solar power (CSP) systems. The operating temperature range for the three main CSP platforms is highlighted.
at the Solar Two project.9 The cycle life of the molten
salt is assumed to be sufficient for a 30 year power
plant service lifetime, although no solar TES system
has operated for this long. In contrast, round trip energy storage efficiency in batteries is roughly 75% for
lead acid with a cycle life upto 2000 cycles and nearly
100% for lithium ion with a lifetime of 3000 cycles.10
Thermal storage can be relatively inexpensive
compared to other options. Currently, the estimated
cost of thermal storage for CSP is $30 per kWhth11 for
a central receiver with 9 h of storage. Assuming a conservative thermal to electrical conversion efficiency of
30%, the effective cost of electrical energy storage is
$90 per kWhe for a central receiver system. Electrical energy storage systems, including batteries, have
a considerably higher cost near $500 per kWhe and
will need to be replaced several times over the life of a
power plant given this degradation rates of the batteries themselves,12 resulting in a substantial system cost
increase. Despite the relatively low cost of TES, it is
not yet practical, either technically or economically,
to include enough storage to reach a power plant capa
city factor much in excess of 70%. This point is made
in a study showing that the minimum levelized cost of
energy (LCOE) for a CSP plant is realized by including
around 12 h of storage (6570% capacity), which enables additional use of the power block, thus reducing
its effective cost.13 Conventional power plants typically have a capacity factor between 7090%. CSP
facilities with thermal storage can reach this level of
capacity by including hybridization with natural gas.
In such a system, natural gas, instead of solar-derived

122

heat, is used to drive the thermal power plant over

the small fraction of the year when the solar resource
is insufficient. This approach has been demonstrated
successfully in many plants including the solar energy
generating station (SEGS) facilities operating in California since the 1980s.14

TES TECHNOLOGIES
The development of TES technologies has been closely
tied to both the operational requirements of power
cycles suitable for CSP applications, and the operating characteristics of the three main CSP platforms:
parabolic trough, parabolic dish, and central receiver.
Figure 4 shows the operating envelope (temperature
range) of each of these platforms as well as the potential thermal efficiency of power cycles currently
under consideration for CSP. These include Rankine
cycles using steam or organic fluids operating between
300 C650 C, Brayton cycles at 900 C and above for
air and 600 C800 C for supercritical CO2, and Stirling engines at 600 C800 C.
The general structure of a CSP power plant with
TES is the same, in most respects, regardless of the
platform or specific power cycle. An illustration of
a central receiver plant, such as the commercial scale
(100 MWe) power plant currently under development
by SolarReserve15 with a TES system, is shown in
Figure 5. The key features are as follows:
Collection and focusing of sunlight onto a receiver by an array of mirrors;

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Thermal energy storage for solar power production

F I G U R E 5 | A central receiver power plant with two tank molten nitrate salt thermal energy storage (TES).15 This configuration is identical to
that demonstrated at the Solar Two project sited in Barstow, CA. This is an example of direct TES wherein the heat transfer fluid and thermal
storage media are identical. Source: SolarReserve. (Reprinted by permission from Ref. 16. Copyright of Solar Reserve.)

A receiver that converts solar energy into heat;

A heat transfer material, usually a fluid, that
moves heat from the receiver to the storage
system;
A TES system containing a storage media that
may or may not be the same as the heat transfer material;
A power block that receives energy either directly from the heat transfer material via the
receiver or from the TES system.
In the case of the central receiver system shown
in Figure 5, both the heat transfer material and the
storage media are a molten salt composed of potassium nitrate and sodium nitrate. The salt is heated
from 280 C to 588 C in the receiver and stored in
the hot tank. From there, the molten salt is pumped
through the power block to drive a steam turbine and
is then discharged into a cold tank where it remains
until being pumped back to the receiver. The amount
of energy stored in the system is a function of both
the heat capacity of the salt, the temperature difference over which it is used, and the mass of salt in the
system (tank size).

Volume 1, September/October 2012

It is possible to configure the system such that

the power block runs at full-rated capacity day and
night. In this case, the solar collection field and receiver are oversized beyond what is needed to satisfy
the instantaneous energy demands of the power cycle
so that additional solar energy may be collected and
placed into storage. The incremental amount of collection area installed beyond what is required by the
power block is referred to as the solar multiple. In a
central receiver with 12 h of storage, a solar multiple
of 2.8 is required.13

Three General Approaches to TES

Thermal storage systems can be categorized into technologies that utilize either thermophysical or thermochemical energy storage processes. Thermophysical processes involve the storage of energy in one of
two ways, either by adding heat to a material (solid
or liquid) to cause an increase in temperature or by
adding heat to cause a phase change such as melting.
The former case is generally called sensible energy
storage while the latter is known as latent energy
storage. Thermochemical processes use a series of reversible chemical reactions that result in energy stored
in the form of chemical reaction products that may be

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reacted later to liberate heat. The amount of thermal

energy that can be stored in each of these three cases is
expressed in Eqs (1)(3) with the assumption that the
sensible energy is stored in incompressible media:
 TH
c p (T)dT,
(1)
Qsensible = m
TL

Tmp

Qlatent = m

TL

+m


c p (T)dT + mh fusion T=Tmp

TH

c p (T)dT,

(2)

Tmp

TR

Qthermochemical = m

TL

+m


c p (T)dT + mh reaction T=TR
TH

c p (T)dT.

(3)

TR

In the case of sensible energy storage, the quantity

of energy stored, Qsensible , is a function of the specific heat of the media, cp , the temperature difference
over which it is stored, TH -TL , and the total mass of
material in storage, m. The most common approach
to sensible energy storage in the CSP industry is to
use a molten nitrate salt as the heat transfer fluid and
storage media.16,17 For a central receiver using nitrate salts, the storage temperature range is typically
288 C565 C, but could be extended in future systems to 288 C650 C.18 In the latter case, the amount
of energy stored per unit mass is 0.58 MJ/kg while the
energy stored per volume is 1050 MJ/m3 . The advantage of sensible energy storage approaches is simplicity in design. The primary disadvantage is that large
amounts of storage media can be required as systems
are scaled up, possibly resulting in high capital cost.
In a latent energy storage system, the quantity
of energy stored, Qlatent , is a function primarily of the
enthalpy of fusion, hfusion , and the mass of material,
although sensible energy stored in the solid and liquid
phases may also contribute in certain systems. A wide
range of materials have been developed for latent energy storage for CSP applications, and they almost exclusively involve a solid-to-liquid phase change as opposed to a more energetic liquid to gas phase change
due to the difficulty in storing gaseous products. If
a liquid-to-vapor transition is used for storage, Eq
(2) would need to be modified to include the energy
associated with the latent heat of vaporization.
Latent energy storage offers two potential advantages over sensible energy storage: increased energy storage density and isothermal energy transfer.
The primary disadvantage is that significant losses
may be incurred during charge and discharge in the

124

case when the storage media has a low thermal conductivity. This is not the case for all materials and the
impact of charge/discharge losses can be mitigated
by reducing the conduction length by encapsulating
the storage media, including finned heat exchangers
and/or heat pipes, or augmenting the thermal conductivity of the media with additives.19,20
The ability to transfer heat at a constant temperature is advantageous for power cycles, such as
the Stirling and Rankine cycles, which require that a
significant amount of the total energy input be isothermal to achieve peak efficiency. Latent energy storage
in nitrate salts is appropriate for parabolic trough
power plants using steam as the working heat transfer fluid in the field (direct steam generation or DSG)
and in the power block.19 In this case, both sensible
and latent energy may be stored in the same media
and used for different purposes, e.g., preheat, evaporation, and superheat. The melting point of solar
salt, a near eutectic mixture of sodium and potassium
nitrate suitable for DSG systems, is around 220 C.
The enthalpy of fusion, and gravimetric storage density, is 0.1 MJ/kg. The volumetric storage density is
195 MJ/m3 . Latent energy storage for solar power
plants based on the Stirling cycle requires a considerably higher phase change temperature (700 C
800 C) that can be achieved with inorganic salts
(hydroxides, fluorides, carbonates) or metallic phase
change media.21
The energy stored in a thermochemical system,
Qthermochemical , is primarily a function of the reaction enthalpy, hreaction , and the mass of the material in storage, although sensible heat may be stored
above and below the reaction temperature. One major
difference between thermochemical storage and the
other two approaches is that in the case of thermochemical storage the temperature at which the system
is charged and discharged may be significantly different. This results from the requirements of the individual chemical reactions comprising the storage system. Currently, thermochemical storage is not being
actively used for CSP applications although preliminary investigations are underway.22 The advantages
of a thermochemical storage approach are potentially
high gravimetric storage density and the possibility
of energy storage for long periods of time, as stable
reaction products, with little energy loss.

TES Media
With respect to performance, the key differentiating
characteristics of the wide array of TES media that
have been developed over the years are operating
temperature range, gravimetric and volumetric

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Thermal energy storage for solar power production

T A B L E 1 The Physical Properties of Selected Thermal Energy Storage Media. Sensible Energy Storage

Media, Both Liquid and Solid, Are Assumed to Have a Storage Temperature Differential of 350 C with
Respect to the Calculation of Volumetric and Gravimetric Storage Density
Storage
Medium
Sensible Energy StorageSolids
Concrete
Sintered bauxite particles
NaCl
Cast iron
Cast steel
Silica fire bricks
Magnesia fire bricks
Graphite
Aluminum oxide
Slag

Specific
Heat
(kJ/kg-K)

Latent or
Reaction
Heat (kJ/kg)

Density
(kg/m3 )

Temperature
Range ( C)
Cold Hot

Gravimetric
Storage
Density (kJ/kg)

Volumetry
Storage
Density (MJ/m3 )

References

0.9
1.1
0.9
0.6
0.6
1
1.2
1.9
1.3
0.84

2200
2000
2160
7200
7800
1820
3000
1700
4000
2700

200
400
200
200
200
200
200
500
200
200

400
1000
500
400
700
700
1200
850
700
700

315
385
315
210
210
350
420
665
455
294

693
770
680
1512
1638
637
1260
1131
1820
794

23
24
23
25
23
23
25
26
27
28

1815

300

600

560

1016

17

750
900
2100
690
960
900
1700

300
300
450
150
316
300
350

400
400
850
316
700
700
1100

875
735
630
980
455
385
735

656
662
1323
676
437
347
1250

29
23
23
25
25
30
27

1.2
1.5

397
515

2380
2250

660
579

397
515

945
1159

28
31, 32

196

7090

803

196

1390

32

607

2200

726

607

1335

32

1.5

100

1950

222

100

195

28

0.53
1.1
2.4
8.04
1.47

215
481
1044
2582
160

2400
2170
2200
790
2070

730
801
842
683
320

215
481
1044
2582
160

516
1044
2297
2040
331

33
33
33
31
31

1225
1757
4100

650
527
538

1225
1757
4100

28, 30, 34
28, 34
35

6064

538

6064

35

1351
3900

521
195

1351
3900

28, 30, 34
36

Sensible Energy Storage-Liquids

Nitrate salts
1.6
(ex. KNO3 -0.46NaNO3 )
R
2.5
Therminol VP-1 
Silicone oil
2.1
Carbonate salts
1.8
R
2.8
Caloria HT-43
Sodium liquid metal
1.3
Na-0.79K metal eutectic
1.1
Hydroxide salts (ex. NaOH)
2.1
Latent Energy Storage
Aluminum
Aluminum alloys
(ex. Al-0.13Si)
Copper alloys
(ex. Cu-0.29Si)
Carbonate salts
(ex. Li2 CO3 )
Nitrate salts
(ex. KNO3 -0.46NaNO3 )
Bromide salts (ex. KBr)
Chloride salts (ex. NaCl)
Flouride salts (ex. LiF)
Lithium hydride
Hydroxide salts (ex. NaOH)
Thermochemical Energy
Storage
SO3 (g) SO2 (s) + 1/2O2 (g)
CaCO3 (s)CO2 (g) + CaO(s)
CH4 (g) + CO2 (g)2CO(g)
+ 2H2 (g)
CH4 (g) + H2 O(g)
3H2 (g) + CO(g)
Ca(OH)2 (s)CaO(s) + H2 O(g)
NH3 (g)1/2N2 (g) + 3/2H2 (g)

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ticularly true of latent energy and thermochemical

energy storage systems. The impact of a given TES
strategy on overall performance and cost can only be
evaluated through a rigorous system level analysis.

Sensible Energy Storage Systems

F I G U R E 6 | Operating temperature limit and energy storage

density for thermophysical (sensible and latent) and thermochemical
energy storage media. In this chart, the energy storage density for
sensible energy media is constrained by the temperature range over
which energy is stored. This was fixed at 350 C. In addition, sensible
energy storage is not included in either the thermochemical or latent
energy storage media calculations.
storage density, and cost. The physical properties of
some candidate storage media are given in Table 1
with gravimetric storage density plotted against maximum operating temperature in Figure 6. Cost data
are not included in Table 1 as these are closely tied to
current market values of the storage media. In addition, storage media costs are not a sufficient indicator
of the resultant storage system cost that may include
expensive containment vessels, piping, pumps, and
other hardware. Figure 6 illustrates the wide variability in storage density and process temperature that
may be accommodated by the different storage approaches. It should be noted that in both Table 1
and Figure 6 the temperature range over which sensible energy storage systems are assumed to operate
was fixed at 350 C for ease of comparison. In reality,
some of these materials are capable of storage over a
much wider temperature range, leading to improved
storage density. This is particularly true of solid phase
sensible energy storage media. However, in all cases
the storage system must be well matched to the process heat demands, i.e., storing energy over a wider
temperature range than required by the process will
likely increase system losses due to increased thermal
losses in the solar collection (receiver) and storage
subsystems. While it is true that the thermophysical
properties of the thermal storage media have a significant impact on the performance of a storage system,
they should not be used exclusively as a means to estimate system performance. It is often the case that
significant losses can be incurred during the thermal
energy charge and discharge processes. This is par-

126

Sensible energy storage is the most commonly used

approach to TES in CSP applications and the only
type of TES system that has been deployed commercially. There are two configurations generally used for
sensible energy storage. In a direct storage system, the
heat transfer fluid is also the storage media. An example of a direct storage system is the two-tank molten
salt storage system demonstrated at Solar Two9,37
and illustrated in Figure 5. In an indirect storage system, the heat transfer fluid discharges energy to a
storage media through a heat exchanger. Indirect storage is used in the Andasol parabolic trough plants in
Spain16 and shown in Figure 7. In these 50 MWe facilities, the heat transfer fluid in the field is synthetic oil
while the storage media is molten nitrate salt. There
are two incentives for deploying indirect storage, the
first being cost. In the case of parabolic trough plants,
the synthetic oils are several times more costly than
molten salt per unit energy stored.38 The second reason to deploy an indirect storage system is that the
storage media cannot itself be used as a heat transfer
fluid. This is the case with high-temperature central
receivers operating with air as the heat transfer fluid
and a solid ceramic thermal storage media, such as the
1.5 MWe power tower located in Julich, Germany.39
It is also true of parabolic trough systems such as
Andasol that cannot use molten nitrate salt as a heat
transfer fluid in the field due to its high melting point
(220 C for the salt used at Andasol versus 12 C for
R
VP-1). Costs for sensible energy storage
Therminol
systems can be reduced by using a hybrid storage configuration that includes both solid- and liquid-phase
storage media. This is called a thermocline40 and generally involves a single storage tank wherein some of
the typically more expensive liquid media is displaced
by a less expensive solid media such as crushed rock.
Molten nitrate salts are the most commonly
used sensible energy storage media and will likely
play a large role in thermal energy storage for both
near-term central receivers and advanced parabolic
troughs. Many molten nitrate salt formulations have
been developed over the last few decades.41,42 The
most common mixture is known as solar salt and
is a binary salt composed of 36 mol% KNO3
and 64 mol% NaNO3. The components are mined
primarily in Chile, and the mixture can be relatively
low in cost, about $0.5 per kilogram.43 Other mixtures have been developed with the aim of reducing

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Thermal energy storage for solar power production

F I G U R E 7 | A parabolic trough power plant with thermal energy storage (TES). This is an illustration of an indirect TES configuration that would
likely use a synthetic oil heat transfer fluid in the collector field and a nitrate salt media in the storage system. A heat exchanger is used to move
heat between the two fluids. This configuration is currently in use at Andasol I and II in Spain. Source: NREL. (Reprinted by permission. Copyright
2011, NREL.)

the melting point to enable deployment in parabolic

troughs where freezing in the field would be very
problematic.43,14 These are typically ternary or quaternary eutectic compounds containing, in addition to
KNO3 and NaNO3 , Ca(NO3 )2 and/or LiNO3 . Sandia National Laboratories has developed quaternary
nitrates that melt around 90 C42 and other mixtures
with nitrite salts that melt around 70 C.44 Melting
point is relatively less important for central receivers
that operate at higher temperatures than parabolic
troughs. The limiting factor for the use of nitrates in
these systems is their thermal stability limit. Nitrate
salts undergo a complex series of decomposition reactions, some irreversible, at temperatures in excess
of 500 C.45 The products of these reactions, which
can include alkali oxides and nitrogen oxide gases,
are corrosive to metallic system components.46,47

Latent Energy Storage Systems

Latent energy storage systems have the potential to
achieve high gravimetric storage density and also discharge heat at a constant temperature. Past (and current) research has focused on developing nitrate or
carbonate salt-based48 storage systems for integration
with either steam power cycles for parabolic troughs
and towers, and hydride,49 fluoride,50 or chloride50
salt for energy storage onboard a parabolic dish Stirling power system. In the latter case, both gravimetric and volumetric storage density are critically im-

Volume 1, September/October 2012

portant as the entire power block and TES system

must be supported at the focal point of the parabolic
dish concentrator, potentially requiring a very robust
structure and drive system. Other phase change systems based on metallic compounds have also been
investigated. Systems such as AlSi,51 CuCa,52 and
SiMg,53 can operate at the relatively high temperatures required for Brayton power cycles and advanced
Rankine cycles. The vast majority of work on metallic
latent energy systems has focused on eutectic compositions in which all of the heat is discharged at a constant temperature. However, off-eutectic compounds
can also be used provided that a variable discharge
temperature can be accommodated in the system.

Thermochemical Energy Storage Systems

Thermal energy storage in the form of chemical bonds
offers two significant advantages relative to other approaches: energy storage density can be significantly
greater and energy can potentially be stored for extended periods of time at minimal loss in the form of
stable reaction products. Despite these advantages a
practical thermochemical energy storage system, one
that competes with other options on the bases of
roundtrip efficiency and cost is yet to be developed.
This is not due to lack of effort. From 1976 to 1982,
the United States Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored multiple projects focusing on the development
of physical and chemical energy storage technologies

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The associated technical challenges can be avoided by

moving thermal energy off of the dish in the form of
lower temperature chemical reaction products. This
concept is sometimes called a thermochemical heat
pipe or thermochemical transport35,59,60 and is illustrated in Figure 8. Using this approach, energy
is added to the system via a reversible endothermic
reaction to produce heated reaction products. The
reaction products are cooled in a counterflow heat
exchanger, while preheating the chemical reactants,
and then sent to storage until the chemical reaction is
reversed to produce heat and drive a thermal power
cycle.

CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK

F I G U R E 8 | A schematic of a thermochemical transport and
storage system that could be used in conjunction with a parabolic dish
or central receiver collection system, enabling more efficient solar
collection for high-temperature power conversion processes such as
those based on the Stirling or Brayton cycles.59 Reaction products may
be placed in storage at a fairly low temperature, enabling long-term
storage are relatively high efficiency.
including several thermochemical energy storage
projects targeting CSP applications. These projects are
detailed in a series of DOE conference proceedings
containing individual contractor reports.3133,5457
An extensive survey of 550 prospective thermochemical cycles conducted by Rocket Research Company
led to the identification of 12 likely candidates after applying several high-level screening criteria. The
estimated roundtrip efficiency of an energy storage
system based on these 12 candidates ranged from 20
50% on a first law basis.34 In addition, the temperature required for the charging reaction is, in some
cases, greater than the temperature of the thermal
energy released in the discharging reaction. This represents a loss in exergy as well as energy. Today, the
DOE is again funding projects in solar thermochemical storage. One is currently underway at General
Atomics and leverages recent efforts in the area of
solar fuels production58 to develop storage options
for central receivers. Thermochemical storage is also
a candidate for parabolic dish systems that operate
more efficiently at elevated temperature (800 C)
than do central receivers or parabolic troughs. The
challenge of incorporating storage with a parabolic
dish is that the energy either needs to be stored on
the dish, potentially resulting in prohibitively large
and expensive support structures, or on the ground,
which requires that high-temperature thermal energy
be moved efficiently off of the dish through two rotary joints or flexible couplings to the storage system.

128

Energy storage technologies must be developed if renewable energy from solar and wind resources is to
play a significant role in future electrical power generation. Without storage, power distribution grids will
likely be overtaxed in dealing with the intermittent
nature of power produced from variable wind and solar generation systems, effectively limiting the deployment scale of these technologies. Thermal energy storage integrated with concentrating solar power plants
is a commercially demonstrated, relatively low cost
solution appropriate for the utility-scale storage of
renewable energy. Systems being deployed today are
capable of storing enough energy for several hours
of operation when the solar resource is not available.
Future systems will accommodate sufficient storage to
run around the clock on most days of the year and include natural gas hybridization to remain operational
during periods of low solar resource, thus providing
firm generating capacity.
Thermal energy storage technologies have been
under development for decades. Over this time, a wide
range of prospective thermal storage media have been
discovered and matched with solar power generation
hardware. Current commercial thermal energy storage approaches using molten nitrate salts are appropriate for Rankine power cycles operating at temperatures up to 580 C. This type of relatively simple two-tank direct storage system can be deployed
at power levels in excess of 100 MWe with 12 h
of storage and including fossil hybridization for increased capacity, effectively making utility-scale solar
power indistinguishable from more conventional generation. In near future, the cost of solar power systems
with thermal energy storage will be reduced through
technical developments including an increase in
power cycle operating temperature that will enable
more efficient electricity production. This transition
to more advanced power cycles will be made possible

c 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.



Volume 1, September/October 2012

WIREs Energy and Environment

Thermal energy storage for solar power production

through targeted research in the areas of heat transfer fluids and thermal storage media (materials
development), hardware development, and system
design.
This information was prepared by the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy.

The abstract figure and figure 7 have been

reprinted from the National Renewable Energy
Laboratorys publication TP/5500-52134 Summary Report for Concentrating Solar Power Thermal Storage Workshop authored by Greg Glatzmaier: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy11osti/52134.pdf,
Accessed December 9, 2011.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A portion of this paper was written while the author was employed by Sandia National Laboratories. Sandia National Laboratories is a multiprogram laboratory managed and operated by
Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S.
Department of Energys National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC0494AL85000.

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FURTHER READING
Many of the references in the document are reports generated by Sandia, NREL, or through government contracts. As such,
they are not always readily available. The following resources may be used to locate many of these reports:
NREL Troughnet: http://www.nrel.gov/csp/troughnet/;
The Office of Scientific and Technical Information: http://www.osti.gov/bridge/;
The National Technical Information Service: http://www.ntis.gov/.

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