Exergy analysis of the impact of a heat exchanger on performance of an integrated sodium-salt CSP plant

High-temperature receivers are critical for third-generation (Gen3) Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technology to achieve high system efficiencies, and play the role of converting concentrated sunlight into heat. In this paper, two CSP systems with different working fluids in the receiver are examined in order to achieve identical supply of heat to the power block: a direct high-temperature chloride salt system and an indirect high-temperature sodium receiver with an associated heat exchanger to heat the same chloride salt. The presented numerical model indicates that the indirect sodium-salt system has a 4.37% higher exergy efficiency than the direct chloride salt system. The exergy destruction in the added sodium-salt heat exchanger was only 0.54%, which did not outweigh the performance benefits gained from using a sodium receiver, when compared to the direct salt case with no heat exchanger. Even at lower DNIs, the better heat-transfer characteristics of the sodium are responsible for its improved performance compared to salt in the receivers.