Parabolic trough (empirical) - Thermal Energy Storage

Hello,

I am trying to model the output from a parabolic trough CSP plant using SAM's empirical model, but I'm getting very strange results concerning the Thermal Energy Storage.

Whenever the Thermal Energy Into Storage reaches it's maximum level, the Thermal Energy Storage Available jumps to the Storage Dispatch Fraction defined in the Thermal Storage page.

As you will see in the images in attachment, on January 11th at 9 am, while the Thermal Energy Into Storage goes from 9 MWt to 1764.71 MWt (the maximum limit), the Thermal Energy Available jumps from 10.6 MWht to 9172 MWht, or exactly 0.8 times the Maximum Energy Storage (11 470.6 MWht) minus the Tank Heat Losses (4.46 MWt).
This represents an increase of 9161.4 MWht in one hour, which is physically impossible given that the Field Thermal Power Produced only amounts to 1811.8 MWt.

If I'm not mistaken, this seems to be a major bug in the code as it has huge implications in terms of annual energy output.
Another small bug I've noticed is that the inputs for Storage dispatch with and without solar are reversed.

Could you maybe have a look at the file and tell me if it's an issue with my parameters?

Thanks!

Best regards,

Cyrille

Dear Cyrille,

Can you attach a copy of the weather file you used for this analysis? I ran a simulation using the weather file for Daggett, California from SAM's default solar resource library, and see a more reasonable shape to the daily curve for "TES thermal energy available:"



Best regards,
Paul.

Hello Paul,

In attachment the TMY3 file used.

The jump only appears when the Thermal Energy Into Storage reaches the Maximum allowed, so I guess in the file for Daggett the solar resource on the 11th of January is not sufficient for this limit to be reached.

Thanks for your help.

Br,

Cyrille

Hello Paul,

Not sure if my answer to your question went out.

Please find in attachment the used TMY3 file.
I guess in Daggett the solar resource is not sufficient on that day for the Thermal Energy Into Storage to reach its limit (1764.71 MWt).

Would there maybe be a way to increase that limit? Right now it's in blue so I can't modify it.

Thanks for your help.

Br,

Cyrille

Hello Paul,

Have you been able to rerun the simulation with the weather file I sent you?
Would like to know if the issue is on my side or if I should start looking for an alternative way of modelling the dispatch strategy.

Thanks.

Best regards,

Cyrille

i am facing problem about some questions. even if i get results of energy then i see where i get maximum energy and minimum energy i got negative value of energy into storage. what is the reason of this? does best solar multiple value also matter to choose? i am attaching some pictures of the results that i get. please reply me. I am also facing problem to run code generated by sam in matlab software. how can i run run this code also? and what is the meaning of electricity bill with system and without system? 

Number of Runs	Solar Multiple	LCOE Real(Levelized Cost of Energy)	Annual Energy	Annual Thermal Energy into Storage
1	1	22.8702	1.06121e+08	4360.49
2	1.25	18.6982	1.39252e+08	4181.23
3	1.50	16.1614	1.72042e+08	4025.47
4	1.75	14.5165	2.04174e+08	3534.51
5	2	13.3328	2.35521e+08	2595.87
6	2.25	12.4393	2.666e+08	1336.11
7	2.50	11.7327	2.97672e+08	-114.105
8	2.75	11.2283	3.26682e+08	-1977.32
9	3	10.8615	3.5383e+08	-3917.54
10	3.25	10.675	3.76286e+08	-5672.18
11	3.50	10.6287	3.94816e+08	-7068.91
12	3.75	10.6719	4.0928e+08	-7560.4
13	4	10.7574	4.21913e+08	-9236.55