Abstract:
Energy is considered as the backbone for a country's development and the demands are increasing globally. Pakistan is already facing the power shortfall and the energy sector is dominated by fossil fuels. Therefore, it is an intense need to effectively manage the alternative renewable energy resources and implement these technologies on large scale. The objective of this research is to propose an efficient and economical model for solar thermal tower power plant which effectively exploits the abundant solar energy to generate electricity. TRNSYS software is used to model the solar thermal tower power plant. Three models are developed and analyzed to find the efficient and cost effective option for Bahawalpur, Pakistan conditions. Rankine Cycle based model is developed taking into account the parameters like inlet flow rate, inlet temperature, pressure and the effect of heat transfer fluids is studied. The output power obtained is 1 MWe with 107 heliostats each of area 64 m2. The Brayton Cycle based model is developed to produce 4 MWe. Third model is the combined cycle system of 2 MWe which uses exhaust gas of Brayton Cycle to run a steam turbine. The numbers of heliostats for each model are optimized and the position of heliostats is specified using System Advisory Model SAM. The cost analysis for all these power plant is done by using RETScreen. As the heliostats were the maximum cost taking component of this system, they are optimized to reduce the overall system cost. It was found that the combined cycle model can efficiently produce enough power with reduced cost and it is feasible for implementation at large scale in Pakistan.
