Vertical limit reduction of chimney in solar power plant

Abstract

The practical feasibility to install solar updraft tower (SUT) for power production require huge capital investment and difficulties in installing tall giant chimney structure. The chimney is the most expensive element of SUT and typically covers one-fourth of the total SUT cost. Previous finding has shown that a divergent chimney shows significant increase in power output than a conventional design for the same height. This paper deals with the unexplored scientific question: for how much height of divergent chimney can be dispensed with for the same or higher performance of a conventional design? Using an experimentally validated numerical model, we systematically investigated height reduction of chimney (and hence substantial cost) of a high performing divergent chimney whose power output is identical with a long unstable costly conventional cylindrical chimney. The conventional cylindrical design was chosen as the conventional SUT prototype installed at Manzanares, Spain in the year 1980. Results show that it is possible to reduce the vertical limit by about 80% of the height of conventional cylindrical chimney. Further, the cost analysis estimated for each SUT designs and the optimum divergent chimney SUT holds payback period 40% less than the conventional SUT. The proposed designs would be useful for floating chimney as well made of fabric material with light density air filled to keep short chimney height upright vertically to resolve the instability issues with the conventional tall chimney structure during high wind speed environmental conditions The present investigation would assist scientific community to develop more advance clean energy-based power generation systems to achieve net-zero carbon emissions targets.