Novel Design of Hybrid Steam Turbine Reflector Based Controller for Solar Power Plant

Abstract

The large-scale generation of electric power using solar energy stimulates the development of novel technologies by researchers with ultimate resource qualities. Solar energy collectors are the significant part of Solar Energy Thermal Power Plant (STP), which can be operated at a particular feasible range for utilizing the solar resource with its intermittent inputs. The life span of solar thermal power plant can be increased by designing the controller with a closed loop. The proposed hybrid design of solar plant involves a controller with closed loop transferring the solar energy to the heat transfer liquid, namely therminol oil, which acts as a medium for transferring heat in Parabolic Trough Collector (PTC) having single-phase flow. The concentrators are the parabolic reflectors focusing the rays on the line with a focal point using tracking mechanism having one axis. Solar collectors are utilized in the power converting technique of solar thermal energy, which concentrates sunlight for preparing Rankine cycle heat of high temperature. The steam turbine is driven by the superheated vapor using Rankine cycle with the shaft of the steam turbine connected to the generator for producing electricity. The life span of the Solar Energy Thermal Power Plant is enhanced as proposed design for solar collectors uses therminol oil as the heat transfer liquid. The controller design is implemented using Predictive Function Control (PFC) or Static Feed Forward (SFF) control with Proportional Integral Controller (PI) which provides the best performance with the added advantage of direct heat storage in the thermal plant. The simulated results are obtained for the proposed design of collector with the rate of change of variation and cost function of manipulated parameters, which are constant for the proposed controller but vary drastically for the conventional PI controller.