Research On Parabolic Trough Solar Collector’s Performance And Cost Of Thermal Power System

As a clean and renewable energy, solar energy is the ideal energy for the low carbon society in the future.It is also the most reliable energy to replace the fossil fuels in the future. Concentrated solar power plant is one of the main technologies for power generation from solar radiation. However, reducing the cost unit component and integrating efficient system integration are the urgent problems to solve in solar thermal power generation.Supported by a10KW trough solar thermal power generation project, the thermal performance of a parabolic trough collector was investigated by experiment and simulation, and the economic and levelized energy cost (LEC) was investigated.Participating in the design of the10KW trough solar thermal power system, the influence factor of the efficiency of the heat collecting was investigated by testing a series of parameter data.consisted of the solar radiation intensity and the inlet temperature of the heat transfer oil. The experimental results show that:in the loss of heat transfer tube, radiation heat loss is the main source of loss total loss of70%-90%; The heat loss was about160W/[J] for the receiver with an190℃temperature difference between the collector and the ambient; the collector efficiency is in the range of50%-60%. As a reference,these result provides the experimental data to support the construction of parabolic trough solar thermal power station in the southwest of our countryOne-dimensional heat transfer model of the parabolic trough collector tube are calculated in the MATLAB. Comparing with the experimental results and the simulation results. the collector efficiency and heat loss were analyzed. Analysis results show that, the simulation results are in agreement with the experimental results. And some conclusion was further verified in experimental study.The levelized energy cost (LEC) was chosen as the evaluation index. As a result of the analysis about the economy of a power plan, reducing the initial investment or increasing the net generating capacity was an effective way to reduce the LEC. The better Sunshine is.the less investment is needed.The bigger the installed capacity of generating units is,the more low cost, and the cheaper the price of electricity is.