Steam and electrical power generation by a hybrid photovoltaic/parabolic dish concentrator using beam splitter technology

Abstract

The parabolic dish is considered the most performant concentrating solar power (CSP) technology since it fits a wide range of domestic and industrial processes and offers better modular deployment than other CSP technologies such as thermal power receivers. The parabolic dish has been widely employed to produce steam and electricity especially when it works in conjunction with Stirling engines; however, the extreme complexity of the latter makes the power generation cost of this technology unfavorable against other competing solutions. In this paper, a comprehensive and detailed optical and thermal performance analysis and optimization study of a hybrid photovoltaic/parabolic dish concentrator with a conical thermal receiver using a beam splitter filter (PV/PDC-CTR-BSF) are carried out. A complete modeling module is developed to assess and optimize the overall yields of the PV/PDC-CTR-BSF. The present work is unique since it encompasses a sophisticated simulation tool enabling performance potential assessment of a novel PV/PDC-CTR-BSF system coupled with a novel conical-shaped helical coiled-tube heat exchanger for steam production and paves the avenue for higher electrical yield using single-junction PV cells mounted over the tip surface area of the paraboloid mirrors. The concentrated solar density (CSD) distribution, optical efficiency, temperature distribution, and steam fraction have particular interest in the performance assessment of the innovative PV/PDC-CTR-BSF package system. As a result, the maximum value of the CSD at the conical cavity receiver and the PV cells is 40 and 8 kW/m2, respectively. The optical efficiency of the proposed design has a breakthrough in the record of the typical hybrid designs reaching the value of 67%. Moreover, the maximum surface solar cells temperature was 80°C, while the temperature reached 170°C at the conical cavity receiver. The optical new hybrid design has maximized the steam productivity up to a steam volume fraction of 98%.