Effect of chimney shadow on the performance of wind supercharged solar chimney power plants: A numerical case study for the Spanish prototype

Abstract

Three-dimensional numerical simulations for a solar chimney power plant (SCPP) and wind supercharged solar chimney power plant (WSSCPP) based on the Spanish prototype using the solar ray-tracing algorithm were performed to study the shadow effect of the chimney. The area of the shadow region increases with an increase in the incident angle of the solar rays. A parametric study was performed by varying the incident angle from 0° to 30°. The temperature and velocity distributions at different incident angles were analyzed. In addition, we investigated the chimney shadow effect in several comprehensive SCPP systems. The findings show that the turbine shaft powers of the SCPP and WSSCPP were reduced by 22.4% and 13.7%, respectively, when the incident angle increased from 0° to 30°. In conclusion, it is important to consider the chimney shadow effect when estimating the performance in the design and cost analysis of SCPP systems.