Optimum choice and placement of concentrating solar power technologies in integrated solar combined cycle systems

Abstract

Concentrating solar power plants projects have been rapidly increasing over the last few years driven by the advances in the solar technology. The operational issues associated with the variable nature of solar energy could be overcome by integrating the solar input into fossil-fuelled power plants. In this paper solar energy is added to the bottoming part of a state-of-the-art three pressure level natural gas combined cycle and parabolic trough, linear Fresnel and solar tower technologies are considered in the search for the optimum integration. Detailed models of the combined cycle and solar field are built in the Thermoflex® environment to evaluate the performance of different integrated solar combined cycle system configurations. Results show how the placement of solar heat addition affects the heat absorption in the heat recovery steam generator and, in turn, the overall system performance. Unlike solar-only power plants which call for the highest temperature concentrating solar technologies to maximize thermal efficiency, the best integration is obtained here using moderate temperature concentrating solar technologies which enable a significant reduction of the heat transfer irreversibility in the heat recovery steam generator. Accordingly, high solar radiation-to-electricity conversion efficiencies approaching 30% are achieved using well-established solar technologies

Comparison of Different Technologies for Integrated Solar Combined Cycles: Analysis of Concentrating Technology and Solar Integration

“…In the case of solar integration into the steam cycle (Figure 1a), namely PTC-DSG, the configuration corresponds to the conventional ISCCs. Solar energy is used to boil part of the water of the high pressure level in parallel with the corresponding evaporator of the HRSG (which is the optimum layout for solar integration into the steam cycle [31,32]). …”

Exergo-Ecological Assessment of Waste to Energy Plants Supported by Solar Energy

“…The specific exergy of the solar radiation ex F,1 [W/m 2 ] is calculated using the Equation 6adapted from Petela and Szargut [29,39] and used in similar studies [22,40,41]:…”

“…Regarding hybrid fossil fuel plants integrated with solar power, the conventional exergetic analysis has been applied to evaluate the exergy destructions of the components in the solar tower aided coal power plant [20,21]. In another example, optimum choice of method of integration of the solar subsystem with the gas combined cycle was studied [22,23].…”

Technical and economic potential of concentrating solar thermal power generation in India

“…In order to improve the overall efficiency and techno-economic viability of CSP projects the approach of integrating CSP projects with gas has been explored by several project developers through integrated solar combined cycle (ISCC) [107][108][109][110]. The ISCC system is essentially a combination of a solar field of CSP project with gas turbine-combined cycle.…”