• Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Check this out: https://raygen.com/projects/raygen-power-plant#resources

    Batteries were a stopgap until we worked out something better. This plant gets 70% efficiency and more than enough energy storage by refrigerating a cold block, then using stored waste heat + the cold block to create a temperature differential, creating steam (in a closed loop, don’t need a big water supply) to spin a turbine that generates power when the sun goes down. Absolutely genius, already deployed and operating and yet nobody is talking about it.

      • Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Efficiency. You’re collecting 70% (potentially 80%) of the available energy. The best PV is below 30% and the best molten salts are 35% max.

        • IndefiniteBen@feddit.nl
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I thought molten salt storage gets like 90% efficiency. What’s the advantage of storing energy by cooling blocks?

        • palitu@aussie.zone
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I could not see where the 70% comes from, apart from the round trip efficiency of the heat capture. I dont know if that is what you are referring to. Do they have a input v output energy comparison somewhere?

        • palitu@aussie.zone
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I am listening to a The Solar Insiders Podcast, which is interviewing the CEO of RayGen (thanks for intoducing it to me, really cool).

          the 70% is the efificency of the energy storage, which is similar to pumped hydro. ie, they put in 1MWh to the chiller, and will recover 0.7MWh from the organic rankin cycle turbine.

          so, they get the 30% of the solar (or whatever it is), plus the recovery of the heat. They were saying that for 1 tower, they get 1MW of solar and 2MW of heat. but they never said how much of the 2MW of heat gets converted to electricity, or what the efficiency is, but it sounds like they need to consume electricity to use the ORC (ie for the chiller).

          one other thing is that they ORCs can provide grid inertia which is a cool outcome too.

    • palitu@aussie.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      i haven’t read about your link yet, but as for storage, the study states

      82% of demand was directly powered by wind and solar without having to pass through storage or be curtailed

      so the majority of the energy is used without being stored, and having the round trip losses.

      … now back to reading ray-gen