CMC-Jacketed Piping for High-Temperature Applications: Concept, Laboratory Tests and Large-Scale Application Test

Abstract

The increasing market share of highly volatile electricity generated from renewable sources like wind or solar energy, leads to enormous challenges in the energy sector. Since large-scale storage systems are neither currently nor in the near future available, the gap between electricity from renewable sources and current electricity demand has to be closed with flexibly operated conventional power plants. In order to be a viable, cost-effective option in tomorrow’s energy market future power plants must be highly efficient while having low CO2 emissions. Furthermore, they have to be highly reactive to counter instabilities in the electrical grid due to fluctuations in renewable sources. Current materials used in power plants are only within limits suited to experience extreme changes in operational loads. However, extreme changes of operational loads will become increasingly severe with a growing share of renewables. Our project team has developed a new concept for CMC-jacketed pipes to alleviate these issues. Recently, this concept was further developed and tested in laboratory as well as a large-scale application test at Grosskraftwerk Mannheim (GKM). All tests are still ongoing. Additionally, to the use in modern highly efficient power plants such CMC-jacketed piping is also suitable for other high-temperature applications, like e.g. solar power plants or industrial chemical applications.