Issues with Beam-down Concepts

Concentrating Solar Power

“…compared to traditional designs. 184 Regardless, in principle any improvements to the absorbers for external or cavity receivers could be applied to beam-down receivers.…”

Two-phase heat transfer model of a beam-down gas-solid fluidized bed solar particle receiver

“…This heliostats configuration eases the operation and maintenance of the ground reactor and reduces the costs of the tower and the heat transport system (Yadav and Banerjee, 2016). The beam-down disadvantages are the costs associated to the construction of the secondary reflector and the large magnification at the ground receiver (Vant-Hull, 2013). Therefore, a cost-benefit analysis should be considered for each process.…”

Concentrating Solar Power

“…182 While a beam-down test plant is operational at the Masdar Institute in the United Arab Emirates, 183 it is not clear that the benefits (primarily that the heavy receiver can be located on the ground) outweigh the drawbacks (e.g., further reflective losses are introduced due to the additional optics and a secondary concentrator is required at the receiver to achieve comparable concentration ratios) compared to traditional designs. 184 Regardless, in principle any improvements to the absorbers for external or cavity receivers could be applied to beam-down receivers. The most common absorber coating for external receivers is Pyromark 2500, which is a black siliconebased paint with high temperature stability.…”