The Performance of a Solar Updraft Tower for Power Generation – Thermodynamic Modeling and Parametric and Economic analysis

Abstract

Generating electricity through solar energy has been extended and developed in various forms other than the conventional solar energy power plants. Solar chimney is one of the alternative non-conventional power plants that have captured the attention of researchers, where many research studies were profoundly examined to carry out theoretical, numerical, and experimental results that ameliorate this topic. The present paper concerns a parametric analysis of the performance of a solar updraft tower for power generation in relation with the main affecting parameters: tower height, mass flow rate, solar intensity, pressure, temperature, and concentrator efficiency. The main performance parameters regarded are the ideal and actual powers and efficiency. To proceed, a simple thermodynamic modeling is developed and validated against previous experimental studies. Clear explicit relations among the different parameters are drawn based on the calculations performed. Moreover, an economic study to find the Levelized Cost of Economic LCOE of a model that provides 100 MW output power in Lebanon, in addition to studying the variation of LCOE and payback period according to the chimney's height are performed. Particularly, it is found that a solar chimney of 950 m height may produce 100 MW with 10 years payback period.