Hybrid Solar Power Plant Research Articles

Modeling of integrated solar combined cycle power plant (ISCC) of Hassi R'mel, Algeria

Purpose Integrated solar combined cycle (ISCC) using parabolic trough collector (PTC) technology is a new power plant that has been installed in few countries to benefit from the use of hybrid solar-gas systems. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the challenges in modeling the thermal output of the hybrid solar-gas power plant and to analyze the factors that influence them. Design/methodology/approach To validate the proposal, a study was conducted on a test stand in situ and based on the statistical analysis of meteorological data of the year 2017. Such data have been brought from Abener hybrid solar-gas central of Hassi R’mel and used as an input of our model. Findings The proposal made by the authors has been simulated using MATLAB environment. The simulation results show that the net solar electricity reaches 18 per cent in June, 15 per cent in March and September, while it cannot exceed 8 per cent in December. Moreover, it shows that the power plant responses sensibly to solar energy, where the electricity output increases accordingly to the solar radiation increase. This increase in efficiency results in better economic utilization of the solar PTC equipment in such kind of hybrid solar-gas power plant. Practical implications The obtained results would be expected to provide the possibility for designing other power plants in Algeria when such conditions are met (high DNI, low wind speed, water and natural-gas availability). Originality/value This paper presents a new model able to predict the thermal solar energy and the net solar-electricity efficiency of such kind solar hybrid power plant.

Stress mitigation of conventional water resources in water-scarce areas through the use of renewable energy powered desalination plants: An application to the Canary Islands

Climate change conditions in the last decades have derived in a significant reduction of rivers’ levels, irregularity of rainfall and, thus, difficulties in accessing to drinkable water. This situation is especially dramatical in islanded environments, such as the Canary Islands in Spain, where these restrictions to water resources have conducted to an overexploitation of aquifers and wells, with the deterioration of the environment that this fact entails. For this reason, desalination plants have become essential, and efforts must be done to reduce their impact and costs, as the involved processes for water desalination are high energy intensive. In this research paper, an optimized size hybrid wind and solar photovoltaic power plant is proposed to feed a desalination plant under the approach of not only feed the desalination process, but also provide the power grid with clean energy, taken advantage of the surplus electricity production. This way, not only the water resources stress is mitigated (through the desalting water production), but also the grid benefits from the integration of a distributed renewable energy source (DRES). Moreover, the business model is improved as the cost of drinkable water production is reduced and the power plant owner receives extra incomes from the water sales. Optimization results for a case study in Gran Canaria island shows that, considering the power dispatch in the island, the remuneration limits for power delivery and the remuneration for provided water, the optimal DRES associated with a desalination plant providing 5600 m3/day of desalted water and a maximum annual electricity injection to the power grid of 5.88 GWh/year, an hybrid solar PV and wind generation installation with electrochemical storage is a feasible solution that makes the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) achieve a singular reduced value despite considering the additional costs of the desalination plant, although financial help must be provided to reduce the Payback Time.

Hybrid solar-wind-diesel power plant for small islands in Maluku Province

Maluku Province is an archipelagic province consist of 1,340 islands mostly classified as small island and has the total area of 712,479.69 km2 of which 658,331.52 km2 (92.4%) are marine and only 54.15 km2 (7.6%) are terrestrial. This geographic condition causes high insularity and approximately 34% of villages in Maluku are without electricity and it is highly impossible to provide every remote small island with the power supply. Solar and wind penetration into existing diesel systems can be considered as a breakthrough to meet the need for power supply for these remote islands. A techno-economic analysis is applied to perform a design of an optimal hybrid solar-wind-diesel power plant to serve the load of the villages at these remote islands. The hybrid plant can reduce cost about 20% as well decrease of greenhouse gas emissions of diesel generator alone. Based on the result obtained, the villages in Maluku Province particularly those at the remote area are the potential candidate for deployment of the proposed hybrid solar wind-diesel power plant for electricity generation.

Identifikasi Potensi Pembangkit Listrik Tenaga Hybrid (PLTH) Angin dan Surya di Kabupaten Aceh Besar

The Wind and Solar Hybrid Power Plant (PLTH) research is expected to be able to contribute to assist the development of electricity supply in Aceh and gradually reduce and substitute the use of fossil energy. Hybrid Power Plant (PLTH) by combining wind energy and solar energy is a sustainable electricity supply technology that is increasingly popular because it is environmentally friendly and is not much constrained by land conversion. This research by measuring wind speed and solar radiation was carried out at selected locations in Aceh Besar District namely Lhoksedu, Lampuuk, Lambadeuk and Krueng Raya. The Lhokseudu location has a maximum wind speed of 6.3 m / sec and an average wind speed of 1 m / sec while solar radiation is a maximum of 764.90 W / m2, an average of 467.87 W / m2 and a minimum of 155.40 W / m2. Location Lampuuk maximum wind speed of 7.6 m / sec and average wind speed of 1.1 m / sec while maximum solar radiation is 1193 W / m2, average 678.74 W / m2 and minimum 30.20 W / m2. The Lambadeuk location has a maximum wind speed of 13 m / sec and an average wind speed of 1.3 m / sec while maximum solar radiation is 1589 W / m2, an average of 626.01 W / m2 and a minimum of 38.50 W / m2. The location of Krueng Raya is a maximum wind speed of 9.4 m / sec and an average wind speed of 3.1 m / sec while solar radiation is a maximum of 1019 W / m2, an average of 811.65 W / m2 and a minimum of 493.50 W / m2. Based on the results of data collection and analysis of wind speed and solar radiation that have been carried out including using secondary data / wind speed data from Blang Bintang BMKG Station at Sultan Iskandar Muda Airport and BMKG Indrapuri Station, it can be concluded that the more potential for PLTH development is the location Lambadeuk and Krueng Raya.

Analysing the benefits of hybridisation and storage in a hybrid solar gas turbine plant

ABSTRACTA dynamic model of a tower-driven, hybrid solar gas turbine power plant is presented to highlight the benefits of hybrid operation as well as the development a novel plant configuration to improve solar fraction by leveraging a packed-bed thermal energy storage (TES). Relative to solar-only plant, hybridisation increases solar-to-electric efficiency (STE) by 30%. Introduction of a passive packed-bed TES only leads to slight improvement in solar energy utilisation and displacement of solar load. A novel plant configuration, which utilises a recycle stream to charge TES, is presented to improve solar energy utilisation. The recycle stream gives freedom to manipulate the thermal capacity of flow in the tower collector to control collector exit temperature and direct excess solar energy to TES. Employment of the proposed plant configuration leads to a 10.8% and 11.3% improvement in yearly STE and solar fraction, respectively, relative to a plant not utilising such a control scheme.

Performance evaluation of hybrid solar chimneys for fresh water production

AbstractThe hybrid solar chimneys power plant can produce electric energy and fresh water simultaneously. The purpose of this research is to numerically analyze the hybrid solar power plant, using heat transfer mathematical models. In this study, performance of two different cases for power generation is investigated. First, combination of solar chimney and humidifier is investigated, and second, combination of the solar chimney, humidifier, and a condenser is investigated. The effect of solar radiation and water temperature used in the humidifier on the produced electric power and fresh water is investigated. Obtained results of the first case show that adding moisture in the collector entry, it can decrease air weight as much as the radiation of the sun. According to the results obtained, in the integrating solar chimney with the humidifier, generated power increases by higher solar radiation in all three modes, although the increased power of the first case with spraying water of 40, 20, and 10°C is almost 4 times, 2.7 times, and 1.3 times higher in comparison with the classical solar chimney. It is found for the second case that, for increased solar radiation in the above three cases, the humidifier output air temperature increases and the amount of produced water and relative humidity at the output of the humidifier decreases.

Hybrid solar parabolic dish power plant and high‐temperature phase change material energy storage system

Hybrid solar parabolic dish power plant and high‐temperature phase change material energy storage system

Thermoeconomic analysis of multi-stage recuperative Brayton power cycles: Part I- hybridization with a solar power tower system

This paper, which is the first part of a study on multi-stage recuperative Brayton cycle configurations, evaluates the thermodynamic and economic feasibility of hybridizing different multi-stage recuperative Brayton cycle configurations with a solar power tower using a pressurized air receiver. In part 2 of this work, the waste energy recovery from non-solar multi-stage recuperative Brayton cycle configurations is evaluated from both thermodynamic and economic viewpoints. The results of this first part of work show that the employment of multi-stage recuperative Brayton cycle configurations leads to a significant increase in the thermal efficiency and a reduction in the fuel consumption, CO2 emissions and levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for both non-solar and hybrid solar power plants. For non-solar power plants, the cycle configuration with 4 stages of intercooling and reheating showed the highest thermal efficiency (53.6%) and the lowest LCOE ($57.80/MWh) leading to a 32% increase and a 17% decrease compared to a simple recuperative Brayton cycle. Results of this study demonstrate that hybridization of multi-stage recuperative Brayton cycle configurations with a power tower plant with a pressurized air receiver is not economically and environmentally attractive at current time. The main reasons are the technological limitations of pressurized air receiver due to lower temperature (1223 K) and pressure (30 bar) as well as the high cost of solar power tower system (especially the heliostats). Advances in the future that enables a higher output temperature and pressure for the receiver as well as reduction in the heliostats and receiver costs would certainly be useful in improving the economic and environmental attractiveness of such hybridizations.

Dynamic Modeling and Simulation of a Hybrid Solar Thermal Power Plant

A solar thermal power plant presents an environmentally friendly process for producing power. However, due to diurnal and seasonal variations in the availability of solar radiation, as well as uncertainty caused by factors such as cloud cover, efficient operation of a solar thermal power plant is a challenging task. Availability of a dynamic model which represents the process behavior in face of these inevitable variations is a prerequisite for efficiently operating the plant. In this work, we develop a dynamic model for a hybrid solar thermal power plant operating in India. The plant uses two different technologies for solar power collection, namely, a Parabolic Trough Collector (PTC) for heating oil and a Linear Fresnel Reflector (LFR) for generating direct steam. Superheated steam, generated using heat exchangers, drives the turbine-generator block to generate electricity. The dynamic model is based on first-principles models of various components in the plant, such as PTC, LFR, heat exchangers, and storage tanks, and captures the integrated nature of plant. The model also incorporates heat losses to quantify night time cooling. A preliminary validation of the developed plant model is also presented using routine field data. The model is then used to simulate the dynamic operation of the plant for two case studies: (i) a two day simulation with field solar insolation profiles corresponding to summer days and (ii) a single day case study with cloud cover. The performances of the PTC and LFR fields as well as the overall plant were quantified and compared using various metrics. The case studies involved cold and warm startup scenarios and highlighted the impact of these initial conditions on the plant performance. The proposed dynamic model can be used for designing optimal operation and advanced control strategies.

Environmentally Friendly Power Generation Technology with Solar PV-Biogas in Rural Areas of Eastern Java

Increasing human activity has an impact on energy needs. Electrical energy is the most dominant type of energy used daily. the increase in electricity demand in East Java was due to an increase in industrial activity in several cities in East Java, such as Surabaya, Mojokerto, Sidoarjo. Meanwhile, the electrical energy needs of several rural areas in East Java, such as in Bodowoso, Bangkalan, Sumenep have not been fulfilled due to geographical factors. The solution to fulfillment of electricity in rural areas can utilize the potential of alternative energy, such as solar energy and biogas. The high potential of solar energy and biogas can be used as an energy source for solar PV-biogas hybrid power plants. The aim of the study was to study the application of a solar PV-biogas power plant model in rural areas. The research method of the solar PV-biogas hybrid power plant is carried out in several stages to assess the potential for the application of hybrid power plants in rural areas in eastern Java. The research method uses a 100 Wp solar PV hybrid system model and 1 KW biogas generator set by analyzing the potential of electricity produced on average per day. The results of the study of the analysis of the potential application of solar PV-biogas power plants show the configuration of the power plant model of generating solar PV-biogas generators produced by solar PV electric power 1.260 kW per day and 0,379 kW KW biogas generator with a total electrical energy of 1,639 kW / day. Electric energy consumption per family head is an average of 1 kWh / day. the application of a solar PV-biogas hybrid power plant still with a surplus of 0,639 KW. the model of solar PV-biogas generator has a good effective and efficient to be applied in rural Java east.

Energy Conservation in High-Rise Buildings Based on Environmentally-Friendly Renewable Energy Sources

The article describes technical proposals on energy conservation in high-rise buildings based on environmentally-friendly renewable energy sources. These include: the use of hybrid wind and solar power plants and vortex wind-driven power plants (aerogenerators) with a vertical axis to utilize both the energy of horizontal wind flows at height level and the energy of ascending airflows. The general principles of building hybrid wind and solar power plants for energy conservation in high-rise buildings are set forth based on the analysis of prior art. A vortex wind-driven power plant (aerogenerator) allowing the use of low-speed winds and low-temperature heat fluxes, reduction of low-frequency vibration and enhancement of stability is proposed.

Modelling and analysis of a hybrid solar concentrating-waste incineration power plant

Concentrating solar power plant will be a key component of the future energy systems in which the share of renewable energy is extremely high. A major challenge of this technology is, however, its intermittent power output, slowing down its rate of implementation in the global energy matrix. As such, waste incineration is a popular technology in the developed countries as a smart measure for the disposal of municipal waste and generating free energy. In this study, a hybrid configuration of a concentrating solar power plant accompanied with a waste incineration unit is proposed. In the proposed system, the waste incinerator offers a variable heating duty in order to regulate the power output of the concentrating solar power plant. The hybrid plant is designed for a case study in Denmark and is thermodynamically analyzed. The results of the simulations are presented and discussed. It is shown that the hybrid system can pave the bed for increasing the share of solar thermal power and bringing more waste incinerators to the electricity market. A 10 MWe hybrid power plant may prevent up to 8000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emission per month. The overall efficiency of the hybrid system is expected to be 24%.

Operation strategy of a hybrid solar and biomass power plant in the electricity markets

With the potential of low levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and high dispatchability, the hybrid solar and biomass power (HSBP) plant will become an increasingly attractive alternative of fossil energy in the future. However, the combination of biomass fuels, uncertain solar energy and thermal energy storage (TES) system makes energy flow in HSBP plant more intricate. This problem poses a significant challenge to HSBP plant operation in the electricity markets especially with uncertain market prices. In this paper, the linear operation model of HSBP plant is developed to describe the intricate energy flow and technical constraints. In order to maximize the revenues of HSBP plant in electricity markets, an optimal operation strategy is proposed by taking into account the daily variation of market prices. The uncertainties of solar irradiation and market prices are modeled with stochastic programming approach, i.e. a set of scenarios. The large number of scenarios is reduced to relieve the computational burden of mixed integer linear programming (MILP) problem. In addition, the conditional value at risk (CVaR) is adopted to consider the risk hedge. The validity of the proposed model is demonstrated by case study results.

Dynamic simulation, control, and performance evaluation of a synergistic solar and natural gas hybrid power plant

Solar power is considered among the leading renewable energy technologies. Abundant supply, flexibility of installation, and decreasing cost makes it an interesting renewable energy resource. However, there are challenges associated with the reliability of solar power due to its intermittent nature. This work demonstrates the synergies that exist in integrated hybrid systems, where a dispatchable fuel is used in conjunction with concentrated solar power. In this simulation-based study, a parabolic trough solar concentrator is used to collect solar energy. The heat collected from the solar field is used to generate steam in a Rankine cycle. The system also utilizes natural gas combustion in the steam generator to provide supplemental steam when the solar intensity is reduced due to cloud cover or at night. Natural gas is also used for superheating the steam, which allows the system to produce higher temperatures and achieve increased thermodynamic cycle efficiencies. This flexible design produces 100 MW at nominal conditions, while it is capable of producing a maximum of 140 MW when sufficient solar energy is available. The novel contributions of this work include a complete, systems-level, dynamic model of a hybrid solar plant. The model is complete with a control system that smoothly transitions the plant from pure natural gas mode at night to solar hybrid mode during the day. It evaluates innovative design features such as flexible fuel operation, steam superheating to boost efficiency, and preheating by solar or waste heat. Furthermore, this work demonstrates that by hybridizing a solar system with a dispatchable energy source, both the reliability and efficiency of the solar power production are increased. The annual solar-to-electric efficiency increases from 15.2% to 26.13% with hybridization, which indicates that utilization of the solar energy is effectively increased.

Integration of energy storage with hybrid solar power plants

Concentrated solar power (CSP) and photovoltaics (PV) systems integrated with energy storage have large potential to provide cost-competitive and baseload renewable energy. On the one hand, CSP with thermal energy storage (TES) is an affordable and dispatchable option. On the other hand, Electrical Energy Storage (EES) gives dispatchability to PV systems but at high costs due to current prices of EES systems, however an extreme reduction in EES costs is expected. Therefore, there could be a tipping point at which PV + EES becomes the best technology to provide dispatchable power. Here, we explore different scenarios, representing snapshots of technology investment costs according to published projections, in order to identify the dominant technology in a hybrid solar power plant that provides sustainable and dispatchable energy by 2050. The study uses our two-stage multi-objective optimisation framework, in order to optimise the design and operation of a hybrid power plant with energy storage. We found that nowadays CSP with TES is the most affordable technology, but a shift to PV with EES is expected mainly due to the large reduction in the cost of both PV and EES systems. Thus, the presented optimisation analysis can improve the strategies for the design of an effective and economic pathway to decarbonise the power sector.

Energy, exergy, economic analysis and optimization of polygeneration hybrid solar-biomass system

The energy, exergy, economic analysis and optimization with the objective functions of energy efficiency, exergy efficiency, VAR cooling output, desalination output and total output of the polygeneration hybrid solar and biomass system are investigated. The optimization using the objective functions, constraints and the decision variables is carried out utilizing genetic algorithm in EES software for polygeneration hybrid solar and biomass system. In this paper, the optimized values of energy efficiency, exergy efficiency, VAR cooling output, desalination output and total output of the polygeneration system are achieved to 49.85%, 20.94%, 7278 kW, 4405 kW and 14,606 kW respectively. The payback period of polygeneration hybrid solar biomass system is 1.5 years at the electricity tariff rate of ₹7.45/kWh which is less than of solar thermal and hybrid solar biomass power plant.

Numerical study on the influence of vortex flow and recirculating flow into a solid particle solar receiver

Abstract This paper presents a numerical study of a well-established vortex flow receiver and a proposed recirculating flow Solid particle solar receiver (SPSR) capable of achieving high air temperature which is perfectly suitable for the hybrid solar thermal power plant. Solar particle receivers are modeled using discrete particle model (DPM), RNG k- e flow model and discrete ordinate (DO) radiation model. Numerical analysis is done by considering two cases (i) Recirculating flow solar receiver with non-reacting particle and without non-reacting particle as a medium of transferring heat (ii) Vortex flow solar receiver with non-reacting particle and without non-reacting particle as a medium of transferring heat. The examination is carried out to compare the parametric sensitivity of both solar particle receivers with particle and air and without particle as a medium of transferring heat by considering the solar flux that incident on the aperture of the receiver and varying the air flow rate and particle concentration, recirculation rate. The results depict that use of particle enhance the heat transfer for both cases. It is concluded from the thermal behavior of recirculating flow SPSR that about 30% higher cavity thermal efficiency and exhibit higher and uniform heat transfer than a vortex flow SPSR.

Assessing high-temperature photovoltaic performance for solar hybrid power plants

Hybrid solar photovoltaic/thermal power systems offer the possibility of dispatchable, low-cost, efficient and reliable solar electricity production. A key design strategy capable of fully exploiting the heat generation stemming from both solar cell thermalization and sub-bandgap photons involves an integrated photovoltaic/thermal absorber operated under concentrated sunlight, at temperatures conducive to efficient turbine operation, to wit, hundreds of degrees C. A pivotal aim is attaining the highest efficiency possible while ensuring a substantial fraction of the total power derives from the turbines, with gas-fired backup heating and/or thermal storage mitigating the ephemeral character of solar availability. However, the performance of solar cells at unprecedented elevated temperatures remains an open question. Key issues include (a) whether the efficiency loss stemming from high-temperature solar cell operation can be maintained acceptably small, as well as how optical concentration affects it, and (b) whether the solar thermal contribution can constitute a significant fraction of total electricity production. Here, we try to establish upper bounds on photovoltaic and system performance, covering a broad range of cell temperature and concentration levels, for single- and multi-junction cells operating at the radiative limit. We demonstrate that (1) the use of highly concentrated sunlight markedly diminishes photovoltaic - as well as thermal - efficiency losses at high temperature, and (2) the extent to which high operating temperature affects cell efficiency strongly depends on cell architecture. The implications for future generations of high-temperature/high-concentration solar cells are also addressed.

Two-stage optimisation of hybrid solar power plants

Hybrid solar power plants which combine concentrated solar power (CSP) and photovoltaic (PV) systems with thermal energy storage (TES) have the potential to provide cost competitive and dispatchable renewable energy. The integration of energy storage gives dispatchability to the variable renewable generation while the combination of different generation technologies can reduce the costs. However, the design of reliable and cost competitive hybrid solar power plants requires the careful balancing of trade-offs between financial and technical performance. This is made more complicated by the dependence on a larger number of parameters compared to conventional plants and due to the integration of TES which requires that the operational profile is optimised for every design. This contribution presents a two-stage, multi-objective optimisation framework which combines multi-objective linear programming methods for the operational optimisation with multi-objective genetic algorithms for the design optimisation. The operational optimisation which is performed for every design point needs to be performed with linear programming methods. Here an automated scalarisation method is developed for the linear programming method which enables the multi-objective optimisation of the operational profile. This enables the evaluation of the trade-offs between financial and technical performance in both the design and operational optimisation, which is required to design reliable and cost competitive sustainable energy systems. The two-stage multi-objective optimisation is applied to analyse and improve the design of the hybrid solar power plant Atacama-1. It is demonstrated that balancing the trade-off between financial and technical performance is key to increase the competitiveness of solar energy and that it is possible to simultaneously increase dispatchability and decrease the levelised cost of energy. This shows that the operational and design optimisations have to be directly linked in order to exploit the synergies of hybrid systems. Thus the optimisation framework presented in this study can improve the decision making in the design of hybrid solar power plants.

Concentrated solar power (CSP) hybridized systems. Ranking based on an intuitionistic fuzzy multi-criteria algorithm

Abstract Concentrated solar power (CSP) technologies are becoming attractive in more and more countries for the production of electricity and other applications. Currently, the investment costs of CSP technologies are higher than traditional power plants, so a potential way to improve their commercial competitiveness could be the proper integration of CSP systems with other energy sources such as natural gas. This integration process, also known as “Hybridization,” can increase the economic value of the energy produced and help with the transition to “solar-only” power plants in the near future. To support a comparative assessment of the available solutions we suggest the development and application of a multicriteria algorithm. In this paper an intuitionistic fuzzy multicriteria approach combined with fuzzy entropy will be specifically proposed to rank different solar-hybrid power plants.