Study of direct thermal energy storage technologies for effectiveness of concentrating solar power plants

The paper presents the numerical and technical comparisons between the direct thermal energy storage (TES) technologies with economic considerations in beneficial design and control to lead the process up to the sustainable power production for the concentrating solar power (CSP) plants. The analysis is performed based on the available data in the previous work on 5 MW Archimede plant operating in Sicily (Vitte et al., 2012). Considerations on process control, operability and design improvement in the layout of plant and flexibility related to the selected TES technologies are provided in this work due to making the decisions for optimal control.