Al-Abdaliya integrated solar combined cycle power plant: Case study of Kuwait, part I

Abstract

Abstract Kuwait is planning to develop a solar project using a 60 MWe parabolic trough collector in Al- Abdaliya. This will be part of a 280 MWe Integrated Solar Combined Cycle (ISCC) System, which will be the first of its kind and size in Kuwait. The objective of this paper is to develop a mathematical model of a typical ISCC system using Engineering Equations Solver (EES), to evaluate the performance of such commercial ISCC power plants. A sensitivity analysis has been carried out to investigate the effect of selected parameters on the performance of the planned ISCC power plant. Results show that the efficiency of Abdaliya ISCC power plant could reach more than 66% which is 20–100% higher than that of the current conventional power plants in Kuwait. The plant output power is also a strong function of solar heat input, it could reach 290 MWe at solar heat input of 75 GJ/s. The annual fuel saving and emissions reduction are more pronounced in case of adding thermal energy storage than that of increasing its solar fraction from 0.2 to 0.3. The expected annual benefits could support the decision-makers to accelerate the adoption of ISCC power plants in Kuwait.