Evaluating the performance of solar chimney power plant

Abstract

Growing global energy demand has become worrying due to the fluctuating fossil fuel prices, the damage caused by the use of conventional fuels as the toxic emissions and global warming. Therefore, dependence on alternative and sustainable sources has become a pressing topic. In this paper will review the performance of solar chimney power plant, the parameters that affect on the performance, conversion efficiency and power output for a different collection of prototypes. During this study there are found that power output of the solar chimney power plant is directly proportional to increase of the height of the chimney, specifically when the solar chimney is sloped where the performances is better as well as the conversion efficiency. While increasing the diameter of collector will provide a big heating area which cause a decrease of air density due to rise in the air temperature under the solar collector which lead to increase the flow of driving force and the mass flow rate that causes an increase in the power output. Pressure drop is an important factor for identifying the maximum power output when the solar radiation is a constant which effect on thermodynamic properties. Therefore, the efficiency will increase with increasing the optimal proportion of pressure drop.