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Evaluation of solar aided biomass power generation systems with parabolic trough field

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Abstract

Solar and biomass are both renewable energy resources. Using biomass as fuel is becoming more and more attractive after governments increase the tariff for the electricity from the renewable sources. However the costs of power from a biomass power generation plant depend greatly on the availability and quality of the biomass resource. The commercialization of solar alone thermal power generation is hindered by its high initial investment and low thermal efficiency. In this paper, a concept of integrating solar into a biomass power generation system is put forward. In the system the oil heated by a parabolic trough solar field is used to replace the extraction steam to preheat the feed water (entering a biomass boiler) and the previous extraction steam thus saved can continue to do work in the lower stages of turbine. The performance of the hybrid system with different replacements is analyzed and compared through two typical solar aided biomass generating units. The results show that the integration not only reduces the consumption of biomass fuel (at the same generation capacity) but is also proved to be an efficient way to convert solar thermal energy into power. The results also show that with the same solar aperture area, the higher the grade of the replaced extraction steam, the better the thermal performance and economy.

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Abbreviations

A c :

aperture area of solar field (m2)

D i :

flow of extraction steam (kg/s)

E o :

exergy of the fuel (W)

h i :

enthalpy of the extraction steam i (kJ/kg)

h n :

enthalpy of the exhaust steam (kJ/kg)

I b,n :

direct normal insolation (DNI) (W/m2)

m :

flow rate of the feed water (kg/s)

Q :

heat exchange in regenerator (kWh)

q i :

enthalpy drop of extraction steam No. i in regenerator (kJ/kg)

x :

row shadow factor (−)

x i :

saved extraction steam No. i (kg/s)

T a :

air temperature (°C)

T i :

inlet temperature of solar field (°C)

T o :

outlet temperature of solar field (°C)

\( \bar T_{collector} \) :

average temperature of collector (°C)

T s :

solar temperature, T s=6000 K

W :

work output of the original biomass power system (W)

ΔW :

extra work generated with solar energy aided (W)

θ i :

incident angle of collector aperture (°)

ΔE i :

extra work generated by the saved extraction steam No. i (W)

ΔE s :

exergy collected by the solar field (kWh)

α i :

proportion of extraction steam No. i (−)

γ i :

heat released by the drain in the feed water heater i (kJ/kg)

τ i :

enthalpy increase of feed water in regenerator i (kJ/kg)

η :

thermal efficiency of solar collectors (−)

η eo :

exergy efficiency of the original biomass power system (−)

η eh :

exergy efficiency of the solar-aided biomass power system (−)

η es :

exergy efficiency of solar collectors (−)

η se :

efficiency of solar to electricity (−)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing Key Laboratory of Safe and Clean Energy Technology, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, 102206, China

    HongJuan Hou, YongPing Yang, JiFeng Song, ChangQing Dong & Jian Mao

  2. National Engineering Laboratory for Biomass Power Generation Equipment, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, 102206, China

    ChangQing Dong

  3. School of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, 5005, Australia

    Eric Hu

Authors
  1. HongJuan Hou
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  2. YongPing Yang
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  3. Eric Hu
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  4. JiFeng Song
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  5. ChangQing Dong
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  6. Jian Mao
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to YongPing Yang.

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Hou, H., Yang, Y., Hu, E. et al. Evaluation of solar aided biomass power generation systems with parabolic trough field. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 54, 1455–1461 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-011-4366-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-011-4366-4

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