Solar-Generated Steam Retrofit for Supplementing Natural-Gas Combustion at Combined Cycle Power Plants

摘要

A method is provided for retrofitting an existing combined cycle power plant to generate renewable electricity and decrease the power plant heat rate using solar energy. The method is applied to combined cycle power plants that are equipped with an oversized heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) and steam turbine system to accommodate duct burners or other means of providing additional steam to the steam turbine. The method involves retrofitting a plant with a solar energy collection system to produce solar steam for use in the steam cycle portion of the combined cycle power plant. The solar energy collection system is designed to deliver thermal energy to the existing, oversized and/or underutilized HRSG and steam system capacity in the combined cycle power plant. In addition to adding substantially to the value and usefulness of the existing combined cycle power plant, the retrofit detailed in this disclosure removes none of the functionality of the existing combined cycle power plant—it is able to operate with or without the solar energy collector system component.