PROTEAS power cycle: A solar Rankine cycle for research and development

Preliminary tests of a solar Rankine cycle at the PROTEAS experimental CSP facility have been carried out for solar-thermal power inputs between 60 kW and 85 kW. These tests allowed for generating a data bank of performance recordings for the power-block molten-salt steam generator and superheater for mass flux values between 10.28 kg/m².s and 14.59 kg/m².s. The Rayleigh number range for the steam generator was between 16 x 10¹² and 27.4 x 10¹². The corresponding range for the superheater was between 1.7 x 10¹² and 1,94 x 10¹². Subsequently, the design models were validated. The steam-generator model underpredicted the generator performance by up to 36%. On the other hand, the superheater model demonstrated a maximum discrepancy of 3.4% with respect to the measured thermal power output.