IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v135y2014icp373-381.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Theoretical basis and experimental facility for parabolic trough collectors at high temperature using gas as heat transfer fluid

Author

Listed:
  • Muñoz-Anton, J.
  • Biencinto, M.
  • Zarza, E.
  • Díez, L.E.

Abstract

The efficiency of any thermal power plant is related to the maximum working temperature that some components can reach. Examples of material constraints are the first stage blades of a gas turbine or the receiver of a solar tower plant, but there are other temperature constraints, such as the ones related with the heat transfer fluid. Nowadays, this happens in the most common solar technology: parabolic trough collectors that use synthetic oil. This fluid must work below 400°C. This limitation affects the power plant efficiency due to a poor Rankine cycle yield. To avoid this problem and go to higher temperatures, a gas can be used as heat transfer fluid, providing at the same time other significant advantages over synthetic oil: non-flammability and no environmental threats. The purpose of this paper is to justify the theoretical basis of the gas use in parabolic troughs and the problems related, and also to describe the test loop built at the PSA (Plataforma Solar de Almería) in order to demonstrate the technical feasibility of this new technology, testing all components required to build a pre-commercial power plant. This paper describes the main features of this technology, the theoretical basis, the validation of the design tools and the results of the operation. Of them, the more important aspects are that high working pressure can reduce pumping power to adequate levels, that good controllability of the technology with hard solar transients can be achieved and that ball joints leaks problems detected appeared as the main inconvenience, but promising solution has been found.

Suggested Citation

  • Muñoz-Anton, J. & Biencinto, M. & Zarza, E. & Díez, L.E., 2014. "Theoretical basis and experimental facility for parabolic trough collectors at high temperature using gas as heat transfer fluid," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 373-381.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:135:y:2014:i:c:p:373-381
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.08.099
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261914009222
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.08.099?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wang, P. & Liu, D.Y. & Xu, C., 2013. "Numerical study of heat transfer enhancement in the receiver tube of direct steam generation with parabolic trough by inserting metal foams," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 449-460.
    2. Goodjohn, A.J., 1991. "Summary of Gas-Cooled reactor programs," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 79-106.
    3. Zarza, Eduardo & Valenzuela, Loreto & León, Javier & Hennecke, Klaus & Eck, Markus & Weyers, H.-Dieter & Eickhoff, Martin, 2004. "Direct steam generation in parabolic troughs: Final results and conclusions of the DISS project," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 635-644.
    4. Silva, R. & Berenguel, M. & Pérez, M. & Fernández-Garcia, A., 2014. "Thermo-economic design optimization of parabolic trough solar plants for industrial process heat applications with memetic algorithms," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 603-614.
    5. Cheng, Z.D. & He, Y.L. & Cui, F.Q., 2013. "A new modelling method and unified code with MCRT for concentrating solar collectors and its applications," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 686-698.
    6. Silva, R. & Pérez, M. & Fernández-Garcia, A., 2013. "Modeling and co-simulation of a parabolic trough solar plant for industrial process heat," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 287-300.
    7. Fernández-García, A. & Zarza, E. & Valenzuela, L. & Pérez, M., 2010. "Parabolic-trough solar collectors and their applications," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(7), pages 1695-1721, September.
    8. Ravi Kumar, K. & Reddy, K.S., 2009. "Thermal analysis of solar parabolic trough with porous disc receiver," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(9), pages 1804-1812, September.
    9. Simnad, Massoud T., 1991. "The early history of high-temperature helium gas-cooled nuclear power reactors," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 25-32.
    10. Zhang, Ming & Miao, Lei & Kang, Yi Pu & Tanemura, Sakae & Fisher, Craig A.J. & Xu, Gang & Li, Chun Xin & Fan, Guang Zhu, 2013. "Efficient, low-cost solar thermoelectric cogenerators comprising evacuated tubular solar collectors and thermoelectric modules," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 51-59.
    11. Thirugnanasambandam, Mirunalini & Iniyan, S. & Goic, Ranko, 2010. "A review of solar thermal technologies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 312-322, January.
    12. Grena, Roberto & Tarquini, Pietro, 2011. "Solar linear Fresnel collector using molten nitrates as heat transfer fluid," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 1048-1056.
    13. Montes, M.J. & Rovira, A. & Muñoz, M. & Martínez-Val, J.M., 2011. "Performance analysis of an Integrated Solar Combined Cycle using Direct Steam Generation in parabolic trough collectors," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(9), pages 3228-3238.
    14. Tian, Y. & Zhao, C.Y., 2013. "A review of solar collectors and thermal energy storage in solar thermal applications," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 538-553.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Battisti, F.G. & de Araujo Passos, L.A. & da Silva, A.K., 2022. "Economic and environmental assessment of a CO2 solar-powered plant with packed-bed thermal energy storage," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 314(C).
    2. Zaharil, Hafiz Aman, 2021. "An investigation on the usage of different supercritical fluids in parabolic trough solar collector," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 676-691.
    3. Moudakkar, Touria & El Hallaoui, Z. & Vaudreuil, S. & Bounahmidi, T., 2019. "Modeling and performance analysis of a PTC for industrial phosphate flash drying," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 1134-1148.
    4. Nabeel Abed & Imran Afgan & Andrea Cioncolini & Hector Iacovides & Adel Nasser, 2020. "Assessment and Evaluation of the Thermal Performance of Various Working Fluids in Parabolic Trough Collectors of Solar Thermal Power Plants under Non-Uniform Heat Flux Distribution Conditions," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-29, July.
    5. Wang, Ruilin & Sun, Jie & Hong, Hui, 2019. "Proposal of solar-aided coal-fired power generation system with direct steam generation and active composite sun-tracking," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 596-612.
    6. Yılmaz, İbrahim Halil & Mwesigye, Aggrey & Kılıç, Fatih, 2023. "Prioritization of heat transfer fluids in parabolic trough solar systems using CFD-assisted AHP-VIKOR approach," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 751-768.
    7. Ahmed, K. Arshad & Natarajan, E., 2020. "Numerical investigation on the effect of toroidal rings in a parabolic trough receiver with the operation of gases: An energy and exergy analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    8. Chang, Chun & Sciacovelli, Adriano & Wu, Zhiyong & Li, Xin & Li, Yongliang & Zhao, Mingzhi & Deng, Jie & Wang, Zhifeng & Ding, Yulong, 2018. "Enhanced heat transfer in a parabolic trough solar receiver by inserting rods and using molten salt as heat transfer fluid," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 337-350.
    9. Delsoto, G.S. & Battisti, F.G. & da Silva, A.K., 2023. "Dynamic modeling and control of a solar-powered Brayton cycle using supercritical CO2 and optimization of its thermal energy storage," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 336-356.
    10. Famiglietti, Antonio & Lecuona, Antonio & Ibarra, Mercedes & Roa, Javier, 2021. "Turbo-assisted direct solar air heater for medium temperature industrial processes using Linear Fresnel Collectors. Assessment on daily and yearly basis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    11. Wang, Jiangjiang & Lu, Zherui & Li, Meng & Lior, Noam & Li, Weihua, 2019. "Energy, exergy, exergoeconomic and environmental (4E) analysis of a distributed generation solar-assisted CCHP (combined cooling, heating and power) gas turbine system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 1246-1258.
    12. Sait, Hani H. & Martinez-Val, Jose M. & Abbas, Ruben & Munoz-Anton, Javier, 2015. "Fresnel-based modular solar fields for performance/cost optimization in solar thermal power plants: A comparison with parabolic trough collectors," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 175-189.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yılmaz, İbrahim Halil & Mwesigye, Aggrey, 2018. "Modeling, simulation and performance analysis of parabolic trough solar collectors: A comprehensive review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 225(C), pages 135-174.
    2. Cheng, Ze-Dong & He, Ya-Ling & Qiu, Yu, 2015. "A detailed nonuniform thermal model of a parabolic trough solar receiver with two halves and two inactive ends," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 139-147.
    3. Kumaresan, G. & Sudhakar, P. & Santosh, R. & Velraj, R., 2017. "Experimental and numerical studies of thermal performance enhancement in the receiver part of solar parabolic trough collectors," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 1363-1374.
    4. Huang, Zhen & Li, Zeng-Yao & Tao, Wen-Quan, 2017. "Numerical study on combined natural and forced convection in the fully-developed turbulent region for a horizontal circular tube heated by non-uniform heat flux," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 185(P2), pages 2194-2208.
    5. Biencinto, Mario & González, Lourdes & Valenzuela, Loreto, 2016. "A quasi-dynamic simulation model for direct steam generation in parabolic troughs using TRNSYS," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 133-142.
    6. Cheng, Z.D. & He, Y.L. & Cui, F.Q. & Du, B.C. & Zheng, Z.J. & Xu, Y., 2014. "Comparative and sensitive analysis for parabolic trough solar collectors with a detailed Monte Carlo ray-tracing optical model," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 559-572.
    7. Sandá, Antonio & Moya, Sara L. & Valenzuela, Loreto, 2019. "Modelling and simulation tools for direct steam generation in parabolic-trough solar collectors: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1-1.
    8. de Sá, Alexandre Bittencourt & Pigozzo Filho, Victor César & Tadrist, Lounès & Passos, Júlio César, 2018. "Direct steam generation in linear solar concentration: Experimental and modeling investigation – A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 910-936.
    9. Manikandan, G.K. & Iniyan, S. & Goic, Ranko, 2019. "Enhancing the optical and thermal efficiency of a parabolic trough collector – A review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 235(C), pages 1524-1540.
    10. Fuqiang, Wang & Ziming, Cheng & Jianyu, Tan & Yuan, Yuan & Yong, Shuai & Linhua, Liu, 2017. "Progress in concentrated solar power technology with parabolic trough collector system: A comprehensive review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 1314-1328.
    11. Fan, Man & You, Shijun & Xia, Junbao & Zheng, Wandong & Zhang, Huan & Liang, Hongbo & Li, Xianli & Li, Bojia, 2018. "An optimized Monte Carlo ray tracing optical simulation model and its applications to line-focus concentrating solar collectors," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 225(C), pages 769-781.
    12. Ajbar, Wassila & Parrales, A. & Huicochea, A. & Hernández, J.A., 2022. "Different ways to improve parabolic trough solar collectors’ performance over the last four decades and their applications: A comprehensive review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    13. Behar, Omar & Khellaf, Abdallah & Mohammedi, Kamal & Ait-Kaci, Sabrina, 2014. "A review of integrated solar combined cycle system (ISCCS) with a parabolic trough technology," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 223-250.
    14. Zou, Bin & Yao, Yang & Jiang, Yiqiang & Yang, Hongxing, 2018. "A new algorithm for obtaining the critical tube diameter and intercept factor of parabolic trough solar collectors," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 451-467.
    15. Wang, P. & Liu, D.Y. & Xu, C., 2013. "Numerical study of heat transfer enhancement in the receiver tube of direct steam generation with parabolic trough by inserting metal foams," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 449-460.
    16. Xu, Rong & Wiesner, Theodore F., 2015. "Closed-form modeling of direct steam generation in a parabolic trough solar receiver," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 163-176.
    17. Zheng, Zhang-Jing & Li, Ming-Jia & He, Ya-Ling, 2017. "Thermal analysis of solar central receiver tube with porous inserts and non-uniform heat flux," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 185(P2), pages 1152-1161.
    18. Abdulhamed, Ali Jaber & Adam, Nor Mariah & Ab-Kadir, Mohd Zainal Abidin & Hairuddin, Abdul Aziz, 2018. "Review of solar parabolic-trough collector geometrical and thermal analyses, performance, and applications," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 822-831.
    19. Abbas, R. & Muñoz, J. & Martínez-Val, J.M., 2012. "Steady-state thermal analysis of an innovative receiver for linear Fresnel reflectors," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 503-515.
    20. Bellos, Evangelos & Tzivanidis, Christos & Tsimpoukis, Dimitrios, 2017. "Multi-criteria evaluation of parabolic trough collector with internally finned absorbers," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 540-561.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:135:y:2014:i:c:p:373-381. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.