A novel design of a twin-chimney solar power plant for power and distilled water production

Abstract

This work suggests an innovative and distinctive solar twin-chimney power plant (STCPP) design. The proposed unique design consists of a solar chimney power plant, upgraded with a secondary low-cost chimney. Unlike other solar chimney power plants, the proposed design attaches the secondary chimney directly to the collector to maximize water output while having a high energy density and utilization. Several solar chimney power plants designed with water desalination have been proposed in the literature. However, in all the proposed designs, the water desalination occurs mainly at the primary (inner) chimney. In contrast, water desalination occurs at the secondary chimney of the STCPP. The secondary chimney provides a larger surface area than the primary one, hence more water desalination and higher utilization.According to the findings, the novel method produced 1,111,754 kWh of energy annually, 2.9 times more than a conventional solar chimney power plant (384,092 kWh). The findings also revealed that the new design generated 209,165 tons of distilled water instead of nothing with the traditional solar chimney. Additionally, the results showed that the proposed design could reduce CO2 emissions by 658318.5 kg annually, with a 0.650 utilization factor. Furthermore, the comparative study with similar designs showed that the proposed design outperformed all other methods regarding utilization, energy production, water production, and CO2 reduction.