Solar Thermal Industrial Process Steam

Can SAM model industrial process steam generation from solar thermal technologies? It appears that the Concentrating Solar Power models focus on electricity generation and the Solar Water Heating models are geared toward relatively low temperature domestic hot water. However, it would seem as though the Concentrating Solar Power models could be used to determine collector field heat output which could be used to estimate industrial process steam generation. Alternatively, an equivalency factor could be used to convert kWh back to steam generation in mmBtu. Is this possible?

Hi Mark,

Both of the approaches you describe are possible. Because SAM assumes that solar field energy is being used to drive a power block for electricity generation, it makes some assumptions about how to control the field to maintain HTF flow and temperature based on the power block requirements that may be different for a process steam application.

Here are a couple of threads on this topic:

Solar Process Heating

Using SAM to Model Steam Production

Best regards,
Paul.