Evaluating the Potential Benefit of Using Nowcasting Systems to Improve the Yield of Parabolic Trough Power Plants with Single-Phase HTF

Kareem Noureldin, Tobias Hirsch, Bijan Nouri, Zeyad Yasser and Robert Pitz-Paal
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Kareem Noureldin: German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Solar Research, Wankelstrasse 5, 70563 Stuttgart, Germany
Tobias Hirsch: German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Solar Research, Wankelstrasse 5, 70563 Stuttgart, Germany
Bijan Nouri: German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Solar Research, Carretera de Senés s/n, km 5, 04200 Tabernas, Spain
Zeyad Yasser: TSK Flagsol Engineering GmbH, Anna-Schneider-Steig 10, 50678 Cologne, Germany
Robert Pitz-Paal: German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Solar Research, Linder Höhe, 51147 Cologne, Germany

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 3, 1-21

Abstract: Solar field developers include innovative solutions to optimize the energy production of their plants. Simulation tools play a significant role in the design and testing phases as they provide estimations of this yield in different conditions. Transient processes, like passing clouds and solar field start-up, are specifically challenging to optimize and estimate using such simulation tools. Solar fields are subject to high degree of both temporal and spatial variability in the energy input and a detailed estimation can be achieved by simulating subsystems within acceptable time and computational power. Hence, such simulation tools cannot be utilized for tests under realistic operation conditions. The Virtual Solar Field is a computationally efficient simulation tool that allows a detailed transient simulation of parabolic trough solar fields based on single-phase fluids. Using this tool, developers could reproduce a transient test case with exactly the same disturbances to provide fair comparisons between different configurations. In this paper, an evaluation process based on numerical simulations using the Virtual Solar Field is presented. The economic benefit of novel innovative control concepts can be assessed according to the presented scheme. This is demonstrated by evaluating the potential benefit of availability of spatial DNI nowcasts on the control of parabolic trough solar fields. Results show that nowcasting can increase the economic revenue of commercial power plants by up to 2.5% per day. This proves the feasibility of installing such systems.

Keywords: transient simulation; nowcasting; DNI maps; field control (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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