Advances in Solar Central Receiver Technology

The central receiver (or power tower) systems use a field of distributed mirrors – heliostats – that individually track the sun and focus the sunlight on the top of a tower. The solar energy is absorbed by a working fluid and then used to generate electricity. The high temperatures available in the solar central receiver systems can be used not only to drive steam cycles, but also for gas turbines and combined cycles. In over 15 years of experiments worldwide, central receiver solar thermal power plants have proven to be technically feasible, and different heat transfer media (steam, air, molten salts, and particles) can be used, integrating different thermodynamic cycles.

This Research Topic aims to advance the solar central receiver technology and promote its commercialization by presenting novel research and advances in this field. We intend to support researchers, developers, and decision-makers by introducing a comprehensive platform which should include the most recent studies on modelling, experiments, and enhancements of each part of the solar central receiver system, including the heliostat field, the solar receiver, the storage, and the thermodynamic cycles. 

Subjects covered in this Research Topic include, but are not limited to:

• Design, optics, and layout of the heliostat field

• Solar receivers for the central receiver systems (air receivers, molten salt receivers, particle receivers, … )

• Solar central receiver integrating steam cycle

• Hybrid solar gas turbine with different working fluids (air, CO2….)  

• Solar central receiver with combined cycles (Rankine, Brayton, ORC…)

• Energy storage for the solar central receiver systems 

• Hybrid power tower/photovoltaic systems

• Techno-economic assessment of the solar central receiver system