THERMODYNAMIC ANALYSIS AND SIMULATION OF STEAM TURBINE POWER PLANT HYBRID WITH PARABOLIC TROUGH COLLECTORS; A STUDY IN IRAQ

Abstract

Fossil fuel thermal power plants are major investments for electricity production despite of their environmental drawbacks. Using solar energy in a hybrid manner with these power plants a sensible and an economical choice for advanced power generation. In this study, thermodynamic analysis and simulation of a steam turbine power plant hybrid with parabolic trough solar collector field is done. Design process includes selection of heat transfer fluid (HTF), determination of the required solar power, orientation and sizing of the solar field, preliminary design of the solar heat exchanger (HEX) and thermodynamic analysis of the hybrid plant. After verification of computational model, simulations of steam power plant and hybrid power plant are done and results for increasing output electricity and saving fuel oil are studied considering the efficiency improvement and the environmental effects. Important solar field parameters like HTF, glass and absorber temperatures, heat loss coefficients and output power of the collector field are simulated and discussed. Finally, a simple economic analysis is done using levelized cost of energy method (LCOE) which showed that hybridization is economically sound. The study also suggests that, hybridization is a sensible choice for increasing efficiency and output power, decreasing use of fossil fuels, thus environment problems. The orientation of the hybrid connection plays an important role on these parameters.