Design and Development of low Power Output Solar Chimney Power Plant
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Date
2018-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
In order to convert solar energy resource into useful power source different technology has been
used so far. SCPP is proposed to be a cost-effective sector for the production of electrical energy
in a large scale for the future. In SCPP system solar air collector, chimney tower and turbine are
the three essential main components. In this study a detail design and modeling of SCPP is
investigated for maximum power output of 30 ����. The optimization of geometry for each
component is modeled using MATLAB software, Moreover MATLAB is used to predict the
performance of large scale electricity generation from the plant. ENERGY 2D software is used
to study flow characteristics of air temperature inside the collector. As a result for 30 kW power
output the selected optimized dimensions: chimney height, collector diameter, chimney diameter
and collector height (distance between the edges of collector and the ground) are estimated to be
15m, 15m, 0.2m and 0.2m respectively. For a fixed chimney diameter and collector height, an
increase in the height of the chimney rises the power output upto a certain optimum height, an
increases in chimney height beyond the optimum point results an energy loss due to pressure
drop along the chimney will start to dominate the energy rise due to the stack effect. The model
developed is scaled down to a chimney height of 3 �� and collector diameter of 2 �� with maxmum
power output of 32 W.
In the experiment under investigation the characteristics of the temperature inside the collector
throughout the day was studied by varying height of the collector above the ground from 0.17 m
upto 0.4 m. The temperature of the fluid is minimum when the collector height is 0.4 m and
maximum at 0.17 m. The result obtained for a temperature difference between collector exit and
collector inlet from the comparison of experimental and simulated modeled are in a good
agreement under a certain condition. So, the implementation of solar chimney power plant as a
rural electrification is feasible with the potential to provide electrical energy throughout the day
for a desired potential.
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Keywords
Solar energy, Solar chimney power plant, Optimum chimney height, Solar collector, natural convection