Experimental Study of Fouling in Hybrid Cooling Tower Used in CSP Plants: A Prototype Scale Preliminary Test Feedback

Abstract

Concentrated solar power (CSP) is a promising technology to secure the globe energetic future. However, the high cooling water consumption of CSP plants presents a big challenge against its viability in the energy market, especially in arid regions. To resolve this issue, hybrid dry-wet cooling systems are investigated to enhance the low efficiency of dry cooling systems from one side, and to reduce water consumption of wet cooling systems from the other side. Nowadays, the negative impacts of fouling problem in these hybrid systems on its performances aren’t well documented in the available scientific data. Thus in this scope, the main aim of this paper is to fulfill this lack of knowledge in literature by experimental study of the effect of water quality on fouling rate in hybrid cooling tower designed for the CSP plants. For this purpose, a prototype scale unit of this system was installed in the Green Energy Park research platform, which is located in Benguerir, Morocco; and a preliminary test cycle was carried out for several days to verify the reliability of this novel test rig for the programed future tests in MinWater CSP project. Thus, by analyzing the collected measurements about the different performance indicators (e.g. fouling resistance, the exchanged heat, etc.), it is concluded that the fouling resistance measurements for the galvanized tube (R = 100%) are more significant compared to those recorded for the polymer one (R = 6.83%). Moreover, the obtained results are generally in coherence with the expected physical behaviors reported in literature.