Economic Evaluation of Shell-and-tube Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage for Concentrating Solar Power Applications

The capital cost and thermal performance of shell and tube type latent heat thermal energy storage (LHTES) is analyzed in this paper. In order to get the lowest cost of the shell and tube LHTES, the ideal one dimensional heat transfer model is used. The discharging process of shell and tube LHTES working in solar thermal power tower system and parabolic trough solar thermal power system were numerically simulated using lumped capacitance method. The capital cost of the LHTES was calculated considering different volume ratio of tubes and tube length. The results of the economic analysis shows that the tube and shell LHTES is a promising method to reduce the thermal energy storage cost.