The Impact of Hybrid Wet/Dry Cooling on Concentrating Solar Power Plant Performance

Michael J. Wagner, Charles Kutscher

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

22 Scopus Citations

Abstract

This paper examines the sensitivity of Rankine cycle plant performance to dry cooling and hybrid (parallel) wet/dry cooling combinations with the traditional wet-cooled model as a baseline. Plants with a lower temperature thermal resource are more sensitive to fluctuations in cooling conditions, and so the lower temperature parabolic trough plant is analyzed to assess the maximum impact of alternative cooling configurations. While low water-use heat rejection designs are applicable to any technology that utilizes a Rankine steam cycle for power generation, they are of special interest to concentrating solar power (CSP) technologies that are located in arid regions with limited water availability. System performance is evaluated using hourly simulations over the course of a year at Daggett, CA. The scope of the analysis in this paper is limited to the power block and the heat rejection system, excluding the solar field and thermal storage. As such, water used in mirror washing, maintenance, etc., is not included. Thermal energy produced by the solar field is modeled using NREL's Solar Advisor Model (SAM).

Original languageAmerican English
Pages675-682
Number of pages8
DOIs
StatePublished - 2010
EventASME 2010 4th International Conference on Energy Sustainability, ES 2010 - Phoenix, AZ, United States
Duration: 17 May 201022 May 2010

Conference

ConferenceASME 2010 4th International Conference on Energy Sustainability, ES 2010
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPhoenix, AZ
Period17/05/1022/05/10

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/CP-5500-55526

Keywords

  • Concentrating solar power
  • CSP
  • Dry cooling
  • Hybrid cooling
  • IPSEpro
  • Plant modeling
  • Rankine cycle
  • Water use

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