CFD Analysis of a Concentrating Solar Thermal Technology in a PCM-Based Storage System

Greenhouse gas emissions (GHE) are increasing due to the use of non-renewable energy sources. These harmful emissions induce us to decide on renewable sources to produce energy. Most of the recent articles suggested that renewable sources are an alternative to producing electrical energy in comparison with non-renewable sources as these will reduce harmful emissions. In this paper, various storage systems and materials were selected to find out the most suitable materials for TES and HTF based on their physical and chemical properties. PCM -based storage systems were selected although many storage systems are available as they absorb and release heat quickly. ANSYS, i.e., Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code “Fluent” was chosen for the simulation of a concentrating solar power (CSP) system with different PCM and HTF materials. The simulation result predicts the performance of different PCM and HTF materials inside the system geometry, thus the efficiency of the system was predicted. Consequently, an improved design could be achieved by evaluating simulation data to obtain better efficiency.