Performance Analysis of a Solar Power Tower Plant Integrated with Trough Collectors

The heliostat field efficiency is vital for solar power tower (SPT) plants. But the heliostat field efficiency decreases rapidly with increasing capacity, limiting the development of large-scale SPT plants. In this paper, we developed a system that couples trough collectors on the basis of an individual SPT plant with the addition of a mid-temperature tank and solar aided feedwater heating (SAFH) system which is validated by experimental data. The suggested concentrating area ratio of heliostats to parabolic trough mirrors ranges from 2.1 to 2.4. Taking 100 MW system in Lhasa as an example, it is found that the optical efficiency of the integrated system improves by 3.19%, the electricity generation increases by 5.92%, and the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) decreases by 5.34% compared with an individual SPT plant. Finally, considering the effects of latitude and capacity, electricity generation grows greatly with decreasing latitude and the LCOE drops slowly with the increasing capacity. This work will contribute to the large-scale utilization of SPT plants