Development of Design Solutions for a Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage under Conditions of Its Operation in a Single Energy Complex with an NPP

Given the growing share of nuclear power plants in the energy systems of the European part of Russia and the shortage of flexible generating capacities, there is a need to attract nuclear power plants to participate in covering the variable part of the electrical load schedule. The use of storage units, such as latent heat thermal energy storages (LHTES), capable of storing thermal energy received from nuclear power plant reactor units during off-peak hours in the power system and using it during peak load hours to generate electricity will improve the system efficiency of nuclear power plants. Based on the analysis, promising phase change materials (PCM) were identified for operation in thermal storage systems at temperatures from 200 to 300°C, which is determined by the characteristics of the steam turbine plant of a nuclear power plant, including the parameters of feed water and main steam. For the adopted process circuit of an installation with an LHTES with an increase in the temperature of the feed water after the high-pressure heaters of an indirest steam cycle nuclear power plant, the methodological basis for choosing design solutions for the storage system with lithium nitrate as a phase change material has been developed. Using the finite element method in a computer software package, modeling of unsteady heat transfer between this material and water for finned and unfinned pipes was carried out in relation to the LHTES elementary section. Based on the calculation results, graphs of the dependence of the thermal power of the section on the LHTES discharge duration were constructed. Methods are proposed for calculating the duration of LHTES discharge and the mass of the required phase change material when reducing thermal power. For a process circuit with an additional steam turbine unit with a capacity of 12 MW (for NPP power units with VVER-1200), the main characteristics of the latent heat thermal energy storage and the effectiveness of the proposed solution for different LHTES discharge durations are determined.