Parametric Analysis of Hybrid Solar-Gas Turbine Power Plant using Renewable Energy to reduce fossil fuel consumption

A tremendous amount of energy is lost through the exhaust of a simple, reheat, and intercooling gas turbine power cycle. The massive amount of exhaust gasses released by such power plants, which are oxides of carbon, Nitrogen, sulphur, etc., causes serious health issues on the local and global scales. Burning of fossil fuels could be minimised by utilising renewable energy sources, and in this connection, solar energy is the best option for partial clean power generation. During the sunset and cloudy duration when the DNI is zero, the proposed system acts as a simple gas turbine (SGT) cycle. As the value of Direct Normal Irradiation (DNI) increases, the proposed system starts switching to a solar-integrated gas turbine (SIGT) system. The parametric analysis was carried out by varying the compressor pressure ratio from 4 to 12, turbine inlet temperature (TIT) from 1000 K to 1500 K and the actual value of DNI. Results show that the proposed system performs much better than the SGT system. Also, the fuel consumption of the proposed system is much less than that of the SGT system, although it varies throughout the year according to available solar energy during different months. The exergy losses from the exhaust gases are significantly lower than those of the SGT system, attributed to the reduced consumption of fossil fuels.