Study of an unstructured integrated solar captor - thermal storage for CSP

Abstract : An integrated system composed of a solar captor and a thermal storage is presented. Both parts are made of unstructured granular materials, stacked and disposed under a solar concentrator. This system has been devised for being coupled with a "Beam-Down" type solar concentrator. Our first approach for designing that kind of integrated system is to analyze and to optimize both parts separately (the solar captor for one part and the thermal storage in packed bed for the other). Those preliminary studies have been realized thanks to a couple of dedicated experimental devices. Two points are guiding those studies: the economic need for a low cost installation, yielding to a highly unstructured conception of those porous media, and the opportunity to use the very high thermal performances of COFALIT, a product made of asbestos-based retreated waste. The main objective is then to integrate those optimized system in a global integrated device, the stakes of which are presented.