Doutoramento em Engenharia Mecatrónica e Energia
Energy optimization of a concentrated solar power plant with thermal storage
Luís Filipe Lopes Guerreiro

Orientação:  Manuel Collares Pereira e João Farinha Mendes

One of the most relevant problems to solve at a planetary scale is the access to an affordable clean source of energy as CO2 equivalent emissions should be reduced significantly. Some authors aim for a zero emissions target for 2050. Renewable energies will play a leading role in this energy transition, and solar energy with storage is a promising technology exploring a renewable and worldwide available resource.

Within the present thesis component development like a new thermal storage thermocline tank design or having latent heat storage capability are technological developments that have been pursued and analyzed on a system perspective basis, focusing on reducing the LCOE value of a commercial STE plant using TRNSYS software. Material research with molten salts mixtures and cement based materials has been performed at lab scale with promising results. A fully validation should occur through a 15 partners pan-European H2020 project which has been developed with specific support on lab data obtained for this purpose. Incorporation of local available material, “modern slag” from an old mine of Alentejo region, was also studied. The material could be used as an aggregate incorporated into calcium aluminate cement (CAC). This would help to solve a local environmental problem related to soil, air and water pollution due to heavy metals and mining activity.

The integration of these results underlies a broad energy transition model, a proposal in presented in this thesis, with the aim to foster development towards a sustainable usage of resources and promote clean technologies especially in the energy sector. This model can be locally adapted depending on the pattern of existing industries. The goal is to achieve a smooth transition into a clean tech energy society in line with the target of achieving zero emissions for 2050.