Efficient and Robust Compressor Designs for Supercritical CO2 Power Cycles

Advanced concentrated solar power (CSP) plants are projected to significantly reduce capital expenditure costs and the overall cost of generating electricity by 2030. The technological advancements needed to obtain these cost savings will require the supercritical CO2 (sCO2) power block in a CSP plant to have a target cycle efficiency of 50% with air cooling. However, current sCO2 compressor technologies have underperformed and are not adequate for achieving these goals. This effort will develop innovative new compressor design paradigms that are highly efficient and are robust across the entire performance map. This will help achieve the goals for desired efficiency in future CSP plants. Develop innovative new compressor design paradigms that will significantly reduce phase change at the compressor inlet, mitigate the effect of thermodynamic property variations at low, near critical inlet temperatures. The goal is to demonstrate high efficiency across a broad range of inlet temperatures as well as mass flow rates. Preliminary techno-economic analysis will also be performed. Future CSP plants with higher efficiency are projected to reduce cost of electricity by 42% which would potentially result in savings of $6.35 billion for the estimated 14.8 GW CSP market in 2030. Our effort to develop new, robust compressor designs will enable CSP plants to meet their performance metrics and will be a significant advancement in supporting renewable power generation. The commercialization of the sCO2 power block for CSP applications will also reduce the consumption of water thereby conserving this vital resource and help protect the environment.