The thermal and stored heat energy driving a Stirling engine for power generation

Abstract

South Africa’s national power grid is currently in dire straits. The lack of a dependable power supplier and rising electricity costs force the public and businesses to look for alternatives to meet their energy needs. These alternatives are costly to implement and beyond the financial reach of most South Africans. The most common alternative energy source is solar photovoltaic systems with large battery banks to survive Eskom's long, regular load-shedding schedules. This research aims to design and simulate a combined solar-thermal and stored heat energy-powered Stirling engine for power generation. The output of the research simulation was compared to a standard photovoltaic installation of similar power output. The results for this paper were generated from the simulation software package MATLAB. Such a system must have a lower capital cost to compete with solar photovoltaic systems with battery backup. The Stirling system was found to be cheaper than the deep-cycle gel system and about 11% cheaper than the PV system using lithium iron phosphate.