Concentrating or non-concentrating solar collectors for solar Aided Power Generation?

Abstract

The preheating of the feedwater in a Regenerative Rankine Cycle power plant with solar thermal energy, termed Solar Aided Power Generation, is an efficient method to use low to medium temperature solar thermal energy. Here, we compared the use of medium temperature (200–300°C) energy from concentrating solar collectors (e.g. parabolic trough collectors) to displace the extraction steam to high temperature/pressure feedwater heaters with that from low temperature (100–200°C) non-concentrating solar collectors (e.g. evacuated tube collectors) to displace the extraction steam to low temperature/pressure feedwater heaters of the power plant. In this paper, the in terms of net land based solar to power efficiency and annual solar power output per collector capital cost of a Solar Aided Power Generation using concentrating and non-concentrating solar collectors has been comparted using the annual hourly solar radiation data in three locations (Singapore; Multan, Pakistan and St. Petersburg, Russia). It was found that such a power system using non-concentrating solar collectors is superior to concentrating collectors in terms of net land based solar to power efficiency. In some low latitude locations e.g. Singapore, using non-concentrating solar collectors even have advantages of lower solar power output per collector capital cost over using the concentrating solar collectors in an SAPG plant.