Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Thermal Engineering: Theory and Applications May 21-23, 2007, Amman, Jordan

THERMAL AND OPTICAL STUDY OF PARABOLIC TROUGH COLLECTORS OF SHIRAZ SOLAR POWER PLANT

A. Mokhtaria, M. Yaghoubia*, P. Kananb, A. Vadieea. R. Hessamia

a b

Engineering School, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran Renewable Energy Organization of Iran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract In Iran an attempt is made to find possible applications of solar energy to construct the first 250 KW solar power plant in Shiraz. The power plant is comprised of two oil and steam cycles. Oil cycle includes 48 parabolic trough collectors. The present work focuses on the performance study of the parabolic trough collectors in the hot oil generation system. Analysis of optical performance and optical losses of the parabolic trough collectors (PTC) to improve the optical efficiency and to ensure the desired quality can be achieved in solar power plants are important.For thermal and optical study of the parabolic trough collectors, collector oil inlet ( T f i ) and outlet temperature ( T fo ), ambient temperature ( Ta ) were recorded with the help of thermocouples sensors. The solar beam radiation intensity was measured by a Pyrheliometer and the mass flow rate of oil by a Krohne CO. flow meter. The wind speed was measured by a vane type anemometer. All parameters were measured as a function of time. Based on these measurements the value of intercept factor and incident angle modifier of the constructed collector is determined and compared with the design condition and with optical properties of some other large size constructed commercial parabolic collectors. Keywords: Thermal efficiency, Optical efficiency, Incident angle modifier, Responding time. Greek Symbols Nomenclature Please use standard notations. Should you choose to skip this section, all symbols must be clearly defined everywhere relevant in the text. Leave only one blank line between the title of this section and the first parameter description. Please do not forget to delete this paragraph or the entire section accordingly. A C CP f Ib K( ) l Aperture , m
2

Absorptivity of absorber Mass density, kg/m

3

a f I O U

Transmissivity of cover Intercept factor Incidence angle , deg Error Efficiency Subscripts Ambient Fluid Inlet Outlet Useful

Concentration factor Specific heat , W/kg K Focal length , m Beam radiation , W/m2 Incidence angle modifier Length of collector , m Mass flow rate , kg/sec Heat gain , W Temperature , K

& m
Q T

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 711 2303051 ext. 71348-51154 Fax: +98 711 6287508; E-mail: yaghoub@shirazu.ac.ir

1. Introduction Currently, solar parabolic trough collectors (PTC) are employed for a variety of applications such as power generation [1], steam generation [2], and some air cooling systems [3]. Solar thermal power plants based on PTC are presently the most successful solar technologies for electricity generation, as demonstrated for more than a decade by the Solar Electric Generation Systems (SEGS) plant at Kramer Junction in California, USA [4]. The advances of technologies presented in the studies of [5], shows that a significant increase in the performance and reduction in cost is possible for parabolic trough solar thermal electric technologies as compared with the 1997 baseline technology system. Price et al. [6] reviewed the current state of art of parabolic trough solar power technology and described the R&D efforts that are in progress to enhance this technology. Their paper also shows how the economic of future parabolic trough solar power plants are expected to improve.
Table 1. Parabolic trough collector specifications [8, 9] Length Width Aperture Focal length Outer diameter of receiver Outer diameter of cover Concentration ratio Rim angle 25 m 3.4 m 3.1 m 88 cm 70 mm 125 mm 14 Reflectivity of mirror Transmissivity of cover Emissivity of cover Absorptivity of receiver Emissivity of receiver at 0.873 0.96 0.25 0.94 0.14 0.93 1.7 kg sec 0.788

installed in Shiraz solar power plant in north south direction. The power plant is comprised of two oil and steam cycles [8]. Oil cycle includes 48 parabolic trough collectors in 8*6 rows which are used to heat the working fluid (oil) as illustrated in Figure 2. The present work focuses on the performance study of the PTC in the hot oil generation system.

Fig. 1. A row of parabolic trough collector installed in Shiraz solar power plant

300o C
Intercept factor Oil flow rate

90

Solar thermal plants using PTC are basically composed of a solar collectors field and a power block. The solar collectors field is designed to collect heat from the sun which are continuously tracking the sun. Reflecting surface concentrates direct solar radiation in the optical focal line of the collector where the Heat Collecting Element (HCE) is located. The HCE absorb the reflected energy and transmit it to the heat transfer fluid which is pumped to the conventional power block where electricity is generated. Characterization of optical performance and determination of optical losses of parabolic trough collectors are very important issues in order to improve the optical efficiency of these systems and to ensure the desired power quality is achieved in the solar power plants [7]. Design of collector structure is a key item in order to manufacture an easy product able to achieve a high reflecting quality and tracking precision. The collector structure is made of steel which supports the reflective elements as well as the HCEs. This structure must guarantee the parabolic shape of the mirror to obtain a good performance of the collector [1]. In Iran an investigation is made to find possible applications of solar energy to construct the first 250 kW solar power plant near the city of Shiraz. For the solar power plant in Shiraz, parabolic trough collectors 25m long, 3.4m wide with 0.88m focal length are used. More details of collector are in Table 1 [8, 9]. For normal operation September 21 at 12 noon is chosen as the design point. At this hour, solar radiation intensity at the plant site is 816 W m 2 [10]. Figure 1 shows the parabolic trough collector that is

Fig. 2. The collector field of 250 kW solar thermal power plant with the test loop

The general arrangement of the collectors within a loop of the oil cycle is shown in Figure 3. The loop consist of six 25m collectors, one complete loop has total length of over 150 m. This loop is made available initial for testing and evaluating the performance of collectors.

Fig. 3. Test loop of collector with steam generation and storage tank

2. Description of the parabolic trough collector In the present work, thermal performance of parabolic trough collectors system, which has been developed for

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hot oil generation, such as presented in Figure 1 is studied. The loop of PTC system contains 6 collectors for hot oil generation, a hot oil expansion tank (HOET), a circulating pump, a flow meter and other controlling devices. The parabola of the present collector with a rim angle of 90 is very accurately constructed of steel. Glass solar reflector with a reflectance of 0.873 is used in the present work. The solar receiver is made of a stainless steel tube with an absorptance of 0.94 and thermal emittance of 0.25 in 300 o C , a glass envelope and rubber cork seals at both ends of the glass envelope. The steel tube is coated with a heat resistant Cermet paint and is surrounded by a concentric glass cover with an annular gap of 27 mm. The space between the steel tube and glass is evacuated to reduce thermal losses to the surrounding air. Oil from the expansion tank is pumped through the steel tube, where it is heated and then flows back into the expansion tank. The PTC rotates around the horizontal axis of north/south axis to track the sun as it moves through the sky during the day .2.1. Performance testing of the parabolic trough collector The performance of the PTC of hot oil generation system is determined by obtaining data of collectors such as stantaneous efficiency and the system efficiency for different combinations of incident radiation, ambient temperature and inlet oil temperature. The collector oil inlet ( T f i ) and outlet temperature ( T fo ) and ambient air temperature ( Ta ) were recorded with the help of K type thermocouples. All sensors initially calibrated with accuracy of 0.5 o C . The solar beam radiation intensity was measured by a Kipp & Zonen Pyrheliometer and the mass flow rate of oil by a Krohne flow meter with accuracy class of 1.6. The wind speed was measured by a vane type anemometer with accuracy of 0.5 m sec . All parameters were measured as a function of time. The thermal efficiency, of a concentrating collector operating under steady operation conditions can be described by [11]:

the aperture. Strong variation of the modified incident angle will affect the over all thermal performance of the collector and the power plant efficiency. Duffie in 1991[17], presented a relation between K () and the collector geometry as follows:

K ( ) = 1

f l

A2 1 + tan 48 f 2

(4)

In this relation f is focal length and l is length of collector and A is collector aperture area.
Table 2. The value of Intercept factor of Shiraz collectors Tracking period (min) 1:30 2:30 Optical error

Concentration factor, C 14 14

Intercept factor, 0.94 0.93

(mrad) 11.2 16

3. Measurements and discussions The loop shown in Figure 3 is prepared for measurement by cleaning the mirrors and glass cover of the receiver, as well as checking the system to be completely filled with oil and no air is present in the loop. Measurement includes collector oil outlet temperature T fo and oil inlet temperature T f i , oil mass flow rate

&) (m

and

the difference in the temperature of the HCE between the inlet and the outlet to the collector ( t o ) . During measurements it is tried to maintain the collector aperture normal to the sun within the limits of near-normal incidence and any allowable tracking errors, as applicable. The variation of collector oil outlet temperature, T fo , and oil inlet temperature, T f i , with time on one day, viz. October 4, 2006 is shown in Figure 4.

m c p (T fo T fi ) Q = u = A . Ib A . Ib

(1)

The value of optical efficiency can be found as [12]:

o = [K ( )][ ( )n ]

(2)

The value of mirror reflectivity is determined by Optical laboratory, Zanjan, Iran [15]. The glass cover transmissivity , and the receiver absorptivity , are provided by earlier measurements [9]. The intercept factor is defined as the fraction of those rays incident on the aperture that is intercept by the receiver. The value of depends on the optical errors, sun shape, rim angle and concentration ratio [13]. The value of K ( ) also depends on the sun tracking period and it is found according to Table 2, using the proposed graph by [16]. Incidenceangle modifier K ( ) in Eq. (2) is predicted according to the pervious study [13] and defined by:

Fig. 4. Variation of collector oil outlet temperature, T fo , and oil inlet temperature, T f i , with time

K ( ) = cos( ) 0.00045656 0.00004078 2

(3)

Where is angle of incidence of the suns rays on the collector aperture which measured from the normal to

The collector oil temperature increases progressively with time, which varies from 9:53 to 12:25 h, Iranian Standard Time (IST), as the oil is recirculated through a hot oil expansion tank of capacity 1000 liters. The mass flow rate of oil through the collector is measured to be 9 m 3 hr . Figure 5, illustrates that the heat gain by a single collector, which is approached to a steady state condition which is equal to the heat loss through the loop. Note that during the test only a single collector NO. 6 was tracking the sun and the rest of collectors were

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unfocused. Variation of beam radiation, I b A , and useful heat gain, Qu , with time is shown in Figure 5. It is seen that a fairly smooth variation of beam radiation with the maximum (735 W/m2) occurs around noon. Small variation of Qu is due to small variation of wind velocity or off tracking intervals. Generally wind velocity changes from 1.1 m sec to 2.2 m sec . The collector instantaneous efficiency is computed using Eq. (1). Figure 6 shows variation of the collector instantaneous efficiency with time.

This analysis is applied to several collectors that have been tested at low temperature for improved accuracy. The results are presented in a polynomial fit to the data according to Eq. (5).

K ( ) = cos( ) 0.000658629 0.000758124 2

(5)

Figure 7 shows variation of the proposed relation (3), relation (4) and the relation based on measurements (5). In these relations various from 16.19 to 19.8 degrees and the differences demonstrates that K ( ) should be determined exactly after parabolic collector set up and actual field measurements. This figure also illustrates that the actual incident angle modifier is much less than the proposed relation for the design of collector. Such behavior may attributed from mirror cleanliness, tracking error and glass cover cleanliness.

Fig. 5. Variation of beam radiation, I b A , and useful heat gain, Qu

It will be noted that the general pattern of variation of efficiency over a day is not the same as that of the useful heat gain because the value of efficiency depends on both the incident beam radiation and the useful heat gain. With progresses of time, near the noon, incident beam radiation increase but useful heat gain has not change significantly, therefore thermal efficiency decrease. The useful heat gain and the collector instantaneous efficiency are evaluated on hourly basis. All these parameters are strongly influenced by the incident beam radiation and found to follow its variation. Also corresponding optical efficiency based on relation (3) and (4) is presented in Figure 6. The optical efficiency of a parabolic trough collector decreases with incidence angle for several reasons: reduction of transmission of the glazing and the decrease of absorption of the absorber; the increased width of the solar image on the receiver; and the spillover of the radiation from troughs of finite length [14]. In order to be able to apply test results from a short collector module to collector arrays of arbitrary length, it is necessary to separate analytically the end loss from the first two effects.

Figure 7: Variation of incidence angle modifier of various models

Results of compartment characteristic of our collector with the other collectors [6] are compared in Table 3. This table shows that the present PTC has smaller size than the other collectors and its performance should be improved to be comparable with more advanced commercial PTC installed around the world. 3. Conclusion In the present work, performance of the parabolic trough collector of Shiraz power plant with hot oil generation system is investigated experimentally over in summer period. The system operates under closed loop mode by recirculating the oil through a hot oil expansion tank. Variations of collector oil inlet and outlet temperature are measured and the maximum beam radiation during the experimental period was 735 W m 2 . The useful heat gain and the collector instantaneous efficiency as a whole are evaluated on hourly basis. All these parameters are strongly influenced by the incident beam radiation and found to follow each other. The resulted optical and thermal efficiency of about 69% and 64% of the present collector is less than the other installed parabolic collectors. Some improvement should be made by better tracking as well as more cleaning of the mirror and glass tube cover.

Fig. 6. Variation of thermal and optical efficiency

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