THERMODYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF SOLAR TOWER BASED POWER PRODUCTION PLANT

In this paper, a power generation plant based on solar tower plant integrated with thermal energy storage plant is designed and analyzed. Recent advancements in renewable energy sources and their usages in power production systems make them popular for decreasing emissions and harmful effects. Still, fossil fuels are in the first place to meet human needs such as power, transportation or space heating. Hence, in this study solar energy, which is a very effective and clean solution, is chosen to produce power. Due to intermittency of solar energy and to produce power without interruption, a thermal energy storage plant is merged with solar tower plant. Power production is provided by Rankine cycle plant which is a very useful power production cycle, especially for low temperatures. After designing the solar energy-based power plant, some necessary assumptions like reference temperature and pressure are done, then thermodynamic balance equations are assigned to each working fluids found in the plant design. These balance equations are essential for thermodynamic analyses which are very useful tool to evaluate energy systems indicating that how effective the system operates. Thermodynamic analysis results demonstrate that solar energy-based power plant is able to generate 4291 kW of power. In addition, the overall plant’s energy and exergy efficiencies are calculated as 56.38% and 52.74%. In order to assess the system further, parametric analysis is performed. Parametric analysis reveals which and how a parameter impacts the system performance. Therefore, an optimization study can be performed.