Concentrated solar power(CSP)plants are generally located in solar-abundant yet hot and water-stressed loca-tions.In such circumstances,efficient but water-intensive once-through wet cooling and water-free but ineffic...Concentrated solar power(CSP)plants are generally located in solar-abundant yet hot and water-stressed loca-tions.In such circumstances,efficient but water-intensive once-through wet cooling and water-free but inefficient air cooling are both unfavorable.Considering both thermal efficiency and water availability/temperature,recir-culating evaporative cooling is a better alternative.However,evaporative cooling still loses large amounts of water into the atmosphere and thus requires a nonstop water supply.Therefore,simultaneously reducing water loss and maintaining thermal efficiency requires efficient means of supplemental cooling for CSP plants.Follow-ing our previous work on scalable radiative cooling films and a kW-scale radiative cooling system,we explore the potential of consumptive water use reduction in recirculating wet-cooled CSP plants by integrating supplemental radiative cooling and cold storage.Through modeling of a reference CSP plant with a supplemental radiative cooling system as large as the plant solar field,the results show that 40%-60%of the annual consumptive water use can be potentially reduced in the hot southwestern U.S.region with daytime-only radiative cooling,whereas the annual potential water saving can be as much as 65%-85%if the radiative cooling system works both day and night with cold storage.展开更多
文摘Concentrated solar power(CSP)plants are generally located in solar-abundant yet hot and water-stressed loca-tions.In such circumstances,efficient but water-intensive once-through wet cooling and water-free but inefficient air cooling are both unfavorable.Considering both thermal efficiency and water availability/temperature,recir-culating evaporative cooling is a better alternative.However,evaporative cooling still loses large amounts of water into the atmosphere and thus requires a nonstop water supply.Therefore,simultaneously reducing water loss and maintaining thermal efficiency requires efficient means of supplemental cooling for CSP plants.Follow-ing our previous work on scalable radiative cooling films and a kW-scale radiative cooling system,we explore the potential of consumptive water use reduction in recirculating wet-cooled CSP plants by integrating supplemental radiative cooling and cold storage.Through modeling of a reference CSP plant with a supplemental radiative cooling system as large as the plant solar field,the results show that 40%-60%of the annual consumptive water use can be potentially reduced in the hot southwestern U.S.region with daytime-only radiative cooling,whereas the annual potential water saving can be as much as 65%-85%if the radiative cooling system works both day and night with cold storage.