Thermo-economic analysis and multi-objective optimization of solar aided pumped thermal electricity storage system

The concept of solar energy aided pumped thermal electricity storage (Solar-PTES) was proposed to improve the round-trip efficiency, as well as the solar energy utilization efficiency. The thermodynamic model was developed for such Solar-PTES system with the nominal electricity input of 5 MW and the nominal storage capacity of 6 equivalent hours. Taking the round-trip efficiency, energy density and levelized cost of storage as indicators for system performance, the effects of main design parameters were investigated, including that of main components performance parameters and cycle state parameters. The multi-objective optimization algorithm was applied for optimizing three performance metrics and the trade-off analysis was performed. The results indicates that the round-trip efficiency drops with the growing energy density, while the levelized cost of storage firstly decreases as the round-trip efficiency drops and then slightly rises. The minimum case of levelized cost of storage is selected for investigation. In that case, solar heat input is 5.05 MW and solar energy utilization efficiency of Solar-PTES system is 35.7 %. The nitrogen mass flow rate is 27.54 kg/s. The round-trip efficiency, energy density and levelized cost of storage for Solar-PTES system are 68.1 %, 16.63 kWh/m3 and 0.143 ± 0.023 $/kWh, respectively.