Comparative Critique of Thermal Energy Storage Technique in Solar Chimney Power Plants

Abstract

Similar to any solar thermal conversion system, the solar chimney is suffering from the non- availability of solar energy at night and during cloudy conditions. One technique to overcome this setback is the integration of the solar chimney with thermal energy storage, which brings about extended functionality and enhanced performance of the system. This paper presents an overview of the thermal energy storage techniques suggested/reported so far for the solar chimney power plants. Many types of sensible and latent materials with descriptions have been discussed in this paper. The review presents a summary overview of the physical process, experimental and theoretical studies carried out on integrated solar chimneys with thermal energy storages. In addition, the paper presents proposed hybrid thermal materials as thermal energy storage technique for solar chimney power plants. The proposed hybrid type of material is simple and capable to absorb and store the solar energy in the solar collector of the plant leading to higher performance as well as extend the operational time to produce power.