8. Conclusion

Among different available options of solar energy, concentrated solar power is considered the most efficient technology available contemporarily and trending in future developments. Its conversion efficiency from solar thermal energy to electricity is very high because it can achieve as high temperature as 800°C. The higherachieved temperature leads to higher efficiency because it enhances the exergy level of the system. For future developments, molten salts and liquid metals are considered better options for energy storage as well as for thermal fluids. Although many combinations of salts in different mixing ratio are available in literature and rapid research is undergoing on the developments of further mixtures, the problem of corrosion is still existing. It is anticipated that liquid metals can solve the problem of corrosion and their stability and energy storage density is even higher than salt hydrates. Research in the similar lines for HTF is also undergoing at a high pace. Most of the developed molten salt HTFs are based on nitrates/nitrites. However, the annual nitrate/nitrite salts production is limited due to their reserves. Therefore, carbonate or chloride-based salts are proposed and evaluated in the most recent studies. One of the major issues of the molten salts is their relatively high corrosive nature to metal alloys. The corrosion issues must be resolved completely before commercial application of the molten salts as the HTF in the CSP Technology.

#### Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their appreciation to the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) for funding the research through grants (31N265 and 31R153).

Advances in Concentrated Solar Power: A Perspective of Heat Transfer DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84575
