Analytical Modeling and Optimization of a Solar Chimney Power Plant

Abstract

Wind and solar resources are diluted and intermittent on the earth; their combination allowed increasing their availability and stability. At great scale, the use of Solar Chimney Power Plant (SCPP) technique constitutes a promising alternative to fossil fuel for generating electrical power particularly in rich regions of natural resources such as solar, wind, terrain, built material, water…etc.). Recently, various research works investigate the design and optimization of these systems under operating conditions. The analysis of different studies carried out on (SCPP), allowed to develop a parametric modelization approach in steady state, founded on 1D heat and mass transfer inside the (SCPP) in order to describe, optimize and to assess its performances under the influence of geometric, operating and ambiance conditions using Matlab-Simulink code. From the present simulation results, the (SCPP) appeared feasible since the temperature gradient of the airflow between the inlet and outlet of the chimney attains 13°C and remains constant during operating cycle. The (SCPP) output is strongly influenced by solar radiation intensity, air heater surface, and chimney height. The solar air heater, the tower (chimney) and the (SCPP) efficiencies obtained are 22.6%, 19.2% and 2.6% respectively.

Optimization of a Small Solar Chimney

“…The mass flow rate obtained for the reference geometry was lower than the optimized geometry. This behaviour was already expected, because when the collector diameter and the tower height increase, the mass flow rate also increases, as seen in the literature [17,22,57,58].…”

Effect of the turbine diameter on the generated power of a solar chimney power plant

“…The maximum mechanical power produced by the turbine is given by the following formula 17,18 where normalηnormalc is the collector efficiency, normalηnormalcnormalh is the chimney efficiency, A c is the collector cross-section area, and G is the solar radiation intensity.…”

Solar Chimney Power Plants: A Review of the Concepts, Designs and Performances

“…Ngala et al [83] developed a mathematical model to estimate an SCPP system's likely performance if it was to be installed in semi-arid regions of Nigeria, and analyzed the impact of geometric and environmental factors on the system. They stated that the system, installed with 700-m high, 10-m diameter chimney, can give 3.9 × 10 9 W power output with 800 W/m 2 radiation intensity and a 300-m collector diameter at 35 • C. They claimed that under the same conditions, the 600-m collector diameter power output could be 15.6 × 10 9 W. They also predicted that the system would produce an average of 3000 MW power per month throughout the year with a collector diameter of 700 m. Khelifi et al [84] developed a mathematical model based on one-dimensional heat and mass transfer within the system to describe, optimize and evaluate SCPP systems' performance (Figure 14). They claimed that an SCPP model with a 100 m chimney height would deliver 0.25 MW of power with a 150 m radius collector at 1000 W/m 2 radiation and 298 K ambient temperature.…”