Thermodynamic Performance and Water Consumption of Hybrid Cooling System Configurations for Concentrated Solar Power Plants

Faisal Asfand, Patricia Palenzuela, Lidia Roca, Adèle Caron, Charles-André Lemarié, Jon Gillard, Peter Turner and Kumar Patchigolla
Additional contact information
Faisal Asfand: Centre for Thermal Energy Systems and Materials, School of Water Energy and Environment, Cranfield University, Cranfield, Bedfordshire MK43 0AL, UK
Patricia Palenzuela: CIEMAT—Plataforma Solar de Almería, Ctra. De Senés s/n, 04200 Tabernas, Almería, Spain
Lidia Roca: CIEMAT—Plataforma Solar de Almería, Ctra. De Senés s/n, 04200 Tabernas, Almería, Spain
Adèle Caron: Hamon D’Hondt, Fresnes-sur-Escaut, 59970 Hauts-de-France, France
Charles-André Lemarié: Hamon D’Hondt, Fresnes-sur-Escaut, 59970 Hauts-de-France, France
Jon Gillard: Centre for Thermal Energy Systems and Materials, School of Water Energy and Environment, Cranfield University, Cranfield, Bedfordshire MK43 0AL, UK
Peter Turner: Centre for Thermal Energy Systems and Materials, School of Water Energy and Environment, Cranfield University, Cranfield, Bedfordshire MK43 0AL, UK
Kumar Patchigolla: Centre for Thermal Energy Systems and Materials, School of Water Energy and Environment, Cranfield University, Cranfield, Bedfordshire MK43 0AL, UK

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 11, 1-19

Abstract: The use of wet cooling in Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants tends to be an unfavourable option in regions where water is scarce due to the high water requirements of the method. Dry-cooling systems allow a water consumption reduction of up to 80% but at the expense of lower electricity production. A hybrid cooling system (the combination of dry and wet cooling) offers the advantages of each process in terms of lower water consumption and higher electricity production. A model of a CSP plant which integrates a hybrid cooling system has been implemented in Thermoflex software. The water consumption and the net power generation have been evaluated for different configurations of the hybrid cooling system: series, parallel, series-parallel and parallel-series. It was found that the most favourable configuration in terms of water saving was series-parallel, in which a water reduction of up to 50% is possible compared to the only-wet cooling option, whereas an increase of 2.5% in the power generation is possible compared to the only-dry cooling option. The parallel configuration was the best in terms of power generation with an increase of 3.2% when compared with the only-dry cooling option, and a reduction of 30% water consumption compared to the only-wet cooling option.

Keywords: hybrid cooling systems; concentrated solar power; power block; water consumption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/11/4739/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/11/4739/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:11:p:4739-:d:369789

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().