Modeling of The Parabolic trough Solar Field with Molten Salt for The Region of Tozeur in Tunisia

摘要

Parabolic trough technology is the most mature and industrialized technology. This technology is generally operated at temperatures of the order of 400° C with the synthetic oils as heat transfer fluids (HTF), while it can reach higher temperatures (500°C) using the molten salt. In this study we are interested in the modeling and simulation of a parabolic trough solar field operating with molten salt as heat transfer fluid using the Trnsys software for the meteorological data of Tozeur, Tunisia. Thermal performance of the developed model was evaluated without thermal energy storage. The designed field must provide to the Rankine cycle a thermal power equal to 35.52 MWth. We have studied the effect of the variation of the field size of the solar collectors, the gained energy that can be stored, by varying the solar multiple factor (SM). The results obtained show that by varying the SM, the size of the solar field increases and the supplied energy increases. We note that the excess energy is high for specific days during the year, which favors the presence of a storage system. For a factor SM equal to 1.5 the energy can be stored up to 6 hours and the amount of energy in excess during the most favorable day of the year (8 July) is of the order of 7.56 10 ∧ 8 KJ. The addition of thermal energy storage to the power plant can significantly contribute in reduction of fuel usage.