Impacts of Collector Radius and Height on Performance Parameters of Solar Chimney Power Plants: A Case Study for Manzanares, Spain

Abstract

In this study, based on the Manzanares prototype, a typical SCPP system is considered with a collector height of 1.85 m, a chimney with a height of 194.6 m and a diameter of 10.16 m, and a collector with a radius of 122 m. With the 3D CFD model designed in ANSYS, the impacts of the change in the collector radius and collector height on the system performance are analysed by considering the turbulence effects. The numerical results are compared with the experimental data on the power output capacity of the pilot plant at different radiant fluxes and a good agreement is obtained. Then, by taking the chimney height and diameter constant, the numerical solutions are repeated for different collector radii in the range of 52.5-175 m. The results indicate that increasing the collector area, which means increasing the energy entering the system, leads to a notable improvement in the power output of the pilot plant. With a collector radius of 175 m, a power output of 95 kW can be obtained whereas it is 55 kW in the reference case with a collector radius of 122 m. Similarly, the solutions are repeated by changing the collector height between 1.1 and 4 m while keeping the other dimensions constant. It is seen that the increase in collector height negatively affects the performance of the system. It is observed that reducing the collector height to 1.1 m for the pilot plant can increase the power output to 61.77 kW.