Experimental investigation of solar tower with chimney effect installed in CRTEn, Tunisia

Abstract

This paper studies the performance of a solar tower power plant (STPP) with chimney effect based on renewable energy proposed for electricity production. That's way, a solar tower prototype was constructed and tested in the Research and Technology Centre of Energy (CRTEn), Borj Cédria, northern Tunisia.The design involves heating air using solar energy and the chimney effect to raise the hot air up the chimney stack. The hot air velocity increases by the use of a convergent nozzle to reach a suitable velocity which can run the wind turbine. The kinetic energy of the hot air is then converted to electricity by the wind turbine.During this study, the influence of the climatic conditions of Borj Cédria site (insulation, ambient temperature) as well as the chimney height and the collector diameter on the amount of electricity production were investigated.The distribution and the evolution of the temperature at different positions of the prototype as well as the electrical energy produced were determined.The results reveal that when the temperatures reach 45 °C, the electric power reaches an average value of about 0.3 W/m2 for a solar tower prototype with 8 m of diameter and 2 m of height chimney.