Session: 08-01: Deployment and Analysis of CSP Subsystems

Paper Number: 170145

170145 - Commissioning of the Generation 3 Particle Pilot Plant 

Abstract: 

The Generation 3 Particle Pilot Plant (G3P3) is a particle-based solar tower at the National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF) that was completed in 2025. The completion of the tower construction and installation of the particle-based CSP equipment is a major milestone in the multi-year multi-institutional effort led by Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and funded by the Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO). This presentation will discuss the activities since completion of the tower construction which includes the installation of the receiver, heat exchanger, and supercritical CO2 (sCO2) heat rejection circulating loop and the first operational data of the commissioning phase where particles are loaded into the system and circulated throughout. This paper will focus on the discoveries and lessons learned during the initial start-up of G3P3. Results include position verification of particle circulation valves and controls, temperature and mass flow rate range of the particle bucket lift, receiver slide gates, electric particle heaters, particle receiver, mass flow measurement systems, particle storage bins, and fluidized particle heater. The supervisory control system outputs will be overlayed on the instrumentation data to demonstrate the actual metric distribution relative to the predictive performance of each component as determined by a supervisory physics-based model. This presentation will discuss the rationale of the G3P3 team used to justify whether the variability and distribution of empirical results relative to the expected value support a determination of success or non-success during commissioning.

Presenting Author: Jeremy Sment Sandia National Laboratories

Presenting Author Biography: Jeremy Sment is a researcher and Principal Engineer at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico where he has worked since 2010. In his role at the National Solar Thermal Test Facility, Jeremy leads a team of particle-based CSP experts on the Generation 3 Particle Pilot Plant currently under construction. Jeremy focuses on thermal energy storage and market adoption of CST applications for industrial heat and solar wastewater treatments concerning the thermal decomposition of PFAS. Jeremy also specializes in system integration, commercialization, and techoeconomics and leads the Field Deployment task in HelioCon in collaboration with NREL. In this role, he has had the opportunity to conduct a series of interviews with industry experts around the world to develop a high-level understanding of solar field deployments in the context of US energy market trends. He is currently performing studies on site-selection and the impacts of heliostats and solar panels on desert tortoise habitats, and heliostat foundation requirements. Throughout his career, Jeremy has performed CFD modeling and measurements of wind loading over heliostat fields, and developed functions for photovoltaic power models and heliostat flux mapping and calibration tools. More recently, Jeremy has developed structural cost modeling tools for receiver towers with tower-integrated storage, particle hoists conveyance machinery, and ground based hot-particle silo construction. Jeremy holds a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico.