Assessment of Solar Gas Turbine Hybridization Schemes

Abstract

A simulation environment allowing steady state and transient modeling is used for assessing several gas turbine based cycles proposed for solar hybridization. First, representative open cycle gas turbine configurations, namely, (a) single shaft (SS), (b) recuperated single-shaft, (c) twin shaft (TS), and (d) two-spool three-shaft, intercooled, recuperated, are evaluated. The importance of design point selection in terms of solar share value is highlighted. Solar steam injection gas turbine cycle (STIG) alternatives, namely, solar steam only and solar/fuel gas steam, are then assessed. Finally, the concept of a dual fluid receiver (DFR) for exploiting the rejected solar power by producing steam during sunny hours with high irradiation is demonstrated. The effects of hybridization on performance and operability are established and evaluated. Solarization effect on performance is estimated in terms of annual produced power and fossil fuel savings. The results indicate that the spool arrangement affects the suitability of a gas turbine for hybridization. Recuperated configurations performed better for the design constrains imposed by current technology solar parts. Solar steam injection is a promising solution for retrofitted fuel-only and conventional STIG engines.

A review on solar‐assisted gas turbines

“…At the design point, it had 19% and 9% higher in power and thermal efficiencies, respectively. In another study, Kalathakis et al various open cycle gas turbine configurations were modeled. The configurations were single‐shaft, recuperated single shaft, twin shaft, and two‐spool three‐shaft, intercooled, recuperated.…”

Solar Hybrid Micro Gas Turbine Based on Turbocharger

“…The heliostat field consists of mirrors with 64 m 2 aperture [28] with reflectivity of 97% [28]. The number of mirrors in this study is a design parameter, which should be chosen for minimizing electricity cost.…”

“…The specifications of solar and other components of the MGT-T/C are summarized in Table 2. For our test case, hourly ambient data (DNI, ambient temperature, pressure, and humidity) for a location in the south of the island of Crete, Greece were used by taking into account 10-year measured data to produce the typical meteorological year [28].…”

“…The continuous variation of the ambient conditions results in the off-design operation of the studied configurations, which is taken into account during the simulation with the usage of appropriate turbomachinery maps and the computation of time-changing loss factors for the solar part. The simulation of the design and off-design operation of turbomachinery and solar components can be found, in detail, in the literature [18][19][20]28].…”