Acciona Power Plant Hydrogen Mitigation Project

Full-Scale Hydrogen Mitigation Installation and Testing at Nevada Solar One

“…Prior to the start of this TCF project, NREL and AE engaged in a 3-year collaborative effort [11] to identify, develop, and demonstrate on laboratory-scale a method to reduce and control hydrogen levels at parabolic trough power plants. Objectives were to (1) develop a sensor that measures hydrogen levels in the power plant expansion tanks, (2) perform experiments to determine the impact of reducing hydrogen levels on the performance of the collector field receivers, (3) develop a model that predicts receiver lifetime as a function of receiver location in the collector field and dissolved hydrogen concentration in the HTF, (4) develop power plant models that predict hydrogen levels in the circulating HTF as a function of hydrogen extraction rates from the expansion tanks, and (5) design and demonstrate a method to extract hydrogen from the expansion tanks at a prescribed rate.…”