Molten salt based nuclear-renewable energy system with thermal storage

Abstract

This paper presents a concept of a Nuclear-Renewables hybrid energy system (NuRenew), originally introduced in 2011 [1-2] and presented at ICREPQ'16 [3]. Extended use of nuclear-renewable hybrid energy systems can help replace fossil fuel-based energy sources with near-zero emission power sources. The NuRenew concept synergistically combines high-temperature salt cooled reactors (SCR), liquid salt based concentrated solar power (CSP), and liquid salt based thermal energy storage (TES), The nuclear power plant (NPP) and a CSP plant are integrated through a common TES system. This dual use of TES improves its usage which increases its capacity factor and effectively lowers its cost. This improves the overall performance of the system and decreases LCOE. This paper evaluates the benefits of the NPP-CSP-TES system coupling as compared to stand-alone configurations.