ONLINE: Sustainable Energy Seminar Series

Wisconsin Energy Institute talk: "Concentrating Solar Power and Thermal Energy Storage," by assistant professor Mike Wagner.

Abstract: Renewable energy technologies offer varying degrees of operational flexibility depending on their capacity to either store energy directly or couple operations to other storage technologies. The cost of renewable technologies also varies substantially, with recent levelized cost of energy for photovoltaic (PV) panels and wind falling in the range of several cents per kilowatt hour, below that of even established conventional fossil or nuclear generation sources. Concentrating solar power (CSP) is a renewable technology that focuses light onto a thermal receiver, generating hot fluid that can be stored directly or sent to a thermodynamic power conversion cycle for electricity production. The integration of storage adds expense to the system but allows for flexible and dispatchable operation, unlike PV or wind generators. We consider a “hybrid” system involving co-located PV+CSP systems that coordinate to produce electricity at lower cost and greater flexibility than either system could in isolation. Operations of the system are optimized over a rolling time horizon using a mixed-integer-linear program approach, and we undertake a design optimization study using gradient-free “black box” nonlinear algorithms to investigate characteristics of low-cost, reliable hybrids. The study concludes that reduction in energy costs in the range of 15-23% are achieved compared to the CSP-only baseline with typical reliability greater 95%, depending on market features.

press release: Due to COVID-19 we are unable to hold the Sustainable Energy Seminar Series in person for the foreseeable future. However, we will be holding our biweekly seminars online through WebEx for the Fall semester, and you are encouraged to participate through that platform.

Registration is required to attend each web seminar. You can register for upcoming seminars at this link: https://uwmadison.webex.com/uwmadison/onstage/g.php?PRID=06fbd951f9456e74eb65be4a0cef5e4b

This gives you the option of registering for individual seminars or multiple seminars at once. As details for future talks become available, they will be posted on the same registration page.

Upcoming seminar details can be found here: https://energy.wisc.edu/events/seminar-series

Archives of past seminars can be found here: https://energy.wisc.edu/events/seminar-series-archive

Sustainable Energy Seminar Series

3:30-4:30 p.m., Wisconsin Energy Institute, Room 1115 (when in-person lectures resume)

The Wisconsin Energy Institute is helping facilitate a series of seminars focused on University of Wisconsin–Madison expertise in sustainable energy. The series will allow students and the public to explore sustainable energy solutions from the small to large, learn about the challenges facing sustainable energy and interact with experts from across campus. If you would like to receive email notifications for upcoming seminars, send an email to join-energy-seminar@lists.wisc.edu.