Applied Energy 87 (2010) 2881–2885

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Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Solar thermal aided power generation

Eric Hu a,*, YongPing Yang b, Akira Nishimura c, Ferdi Yilmaz d, Abbas Kouzani d
a
School of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia
b
North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
c
Division of Mechanical Engineering, Mie University, Tsu 514-8507, Japan
d
School of Engineering, Deakin University, Geelong Victoria 3217, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Fossil fuel based power generation is and will still be the back bone of our world economy, albeit such
Received 19 March 2009 form of power generation significantly contributes to global CO2 emissions. Solar energy is a clean, envi-
Received in revised form 25 October 2009 ronmental friendly energy source for power generation, however solar photovoltaic electricity generation
Accepted 26 October 2009
is not practical for large commercial scales due to its cost and high-tech nature. Solar thermal is another
Available online 25 November 2009
way to use solar energy to generate power. Many attempts to establish solar (solo) thermal power sta-
tions have been practiced all over the world. Although there are some advantages in solo solar thermal
Keywords:
power systems, the efficiencies and costs of these systems are not so attractive. Alternately by modifying,
Solar aided power generation
Energy efficiency
if possible, the existing coal-fired power stations to generate green sustainable power, a much more effi-
Power station cient means of power generation can be reached. This paper presents the concept of solar aided power
CO2 emissions generation in conventional coal-fired power stations, i.e., integrating solar (thermal) energy into conven-
tional fossil fuelled power generation cycles (termed as solar aided thermal power). The solar aided
power generation (SAPG) concept has technically been derived to use the strong points of the two tech-
nologies (traditional regenerative Rankine cycle with relatively higher efficiency and solar heating at rel-
atively low temperature range). The SAPG does not only contribute to increase the efficiencies of the
conventional power station and reduce its emission of the greenhouse gases, but also provides a better
way to use solar heat to generate the power. This paper presents the advantages of the SAPG at concep-
tual level.
Crown Copyright Ó 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Nowadays, most power is, and will continue to be, generated by
consumption of fossil fuels which has serious negative impacts on
our environment. As a clean, free, and non-depleting source, solar
energy is getting more and more attention. However, owing to its
relatively low intensity, the application of solar energy for power
generation purpose is costly, and the efficiencies of the solar ther-
mal power systems having been developed in which solar energy is
used as the main heat source are not satisfactory. In addition, solar
energy utilisation is subject to the change of seasons and weather.
All of these impede the solar energy’s application. How to use solar
energy to generate power steadily and efficiently is a problem that
needs to be addressed.
In this paper a new idea, i.e., solar aided power generation
(SAPG) is proposed. The new solar aided concept for the conven-
tional coal-fired power stations, i.e., integrating solar (thermal) en-
ergy into conventional power station cycles has the potential to
make the conventional coal-fired power station be able to generate
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 8 83130545; fax: +61 8 83034367.
E-mail address: eric.hu@adelaide.edu.au (E. Hu).
green electricity. The solar aided power concept actually uses the
strong points of the two mature technologies (traditional Rankine
generation cycle with relatively higher efficiency and solar heating
at relatively low temperature range). The efficiencies (the fist law
efficiency and the second law efficiency) of the solar aided power
generation are higher than that of either solar thermal power sys-
tems or the conventional fuel fired power cycles.
2. Solar aided power generation
The basis of solar aided power generation (SAPG) technology/
concept, is to use solar thermal energy to replace the bled-off
steam in regenerative Rankine power cycle. This extracted bled-
off steam is normally used to preheat feed water entering the boi-
ler, it has the effect of increasing the thermal efficiency of the cycle,
but at the cost of reducing work output of the turbine due to the
reduced steam mass flow. Therefore the SAPG is capable of assist-
ing coal-fired power stations to increase generating capacity (up to
5%) during the peak hours with the same consumption of fuel, or
remaining the same generating capacity but reducing its green
house gas emissions within the same range.

0306-2619/$ - see front matter Crown Copyright Ó 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2009.10.025
2882 E. Hu et al. / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 2881–2885

The SAPG technology is thought to be the most efficient, eco- Table 1

nomic and low risk solar (thermal) technology to generate power Data used in the case study.

as it possesses the following advantages: Case study country location Australia

2
Average insolation (W/m ) 790
(1) The SAPG technology has higher thermodynamic 1st law and Average sunshine hours per day 6
2nd law i.e., exergy efficiencies over the normal coal-fired Fuel cost ($/kWh) 0.02
power station and solar alone power station. Preliminary Electricity peak wholesale price ($/MWh) 370
Cost of Land (for solar collectors) ($/m2) Not considered in the case study
theoretical studies is presented in the following sections. Finance interest rate (%) Not considered in the case study
(2) Utilizing the existing infrastructure (and existing grid) of Insurance, depreciation, maintenance
conventional power stations, while providing a higher solar
to electricity conversion than stand alone solar power sta-
tions. Therefore a relatively low implementation cost, and
high social, environmental and economic benefits become
Table 2
a reality. Collector data used in the case studies.
(3) The SAPG can be applied to not only new built power station
Australia
but also to modify the existing power station with less or no
risk to the operation of the existing power stations. Collector Temp. from °C Thermal efficiency Cost, $/m2
(4) The thermal storage system that at present is still techni- Flat plate 40 0.4 $75
cally immature is not necessary. The SAPG system is not Vac. Tube 200 0.4 $110
expected to operate clock-round and simplicity is another CLFRa 250 0.3 $165
Concentrator 350 0.4 $200
beauty of the SAPG. The pattern of electricity demand
a
shows that nowadays air conditioning demand has a great Compact linear Fresnel reflector.
impact on the electricity load. Afternoon replaces the even-
ing to be the peak loading period in summer. This means
that the extra work generated by this SAPG concept is just Three scenarios were examined with the THERMOSOLV
at the right time. Namely, the solar contribution and power software:
demand are peak at the same time i.e., during summer day
time. (1) 100% replacement of all the five closed feedwater heaters.
(5) The SAPG is flexible in its implement. Depending on the cap- (2) 10% replacement of all the five closed feedwater heaters and
ital a power station has, SAPG can be applied to the power (3) 100% replacement of IPH2 feedwater heater, which is the
station in stages. first feedwater heater after the reheating process.
(6) The SAPG actively involves the existing/traditional power
industry into the renewable technology and assist it to gen- The summery of the Q and E report are shown in the Table 3,
erate ‘‘green” electricity. It is the authors’ belief that without where E report means the benefit of the SAPG comes from the
the engagement of existing power industry, any renewable additional power generated with the same fuel consumption, and
energy (power generating) targets/goals set by governments the Q report means the benefit comes from the reduced coal con-
are difficult or very costly to fulfill. sumption while remaining the generating capacity.
(7) Low temperature range solar collectors e.g. vacuum tubes In above case the Q reports show the payback time for the tech-
and flat-plate collectors, can be used in the SAPG. It is a great nology is very long comparing with results in the E report. This is
new market for the solar (collectors) industry. because we just considered the return from the saved fuel that is
at low prices. If other factors e.g. carbon tax, higher price for
‘‘green” electricity and social/environment benefits etc. were con-
sidered, the figures would look better.
3. Energy advantages of SAPG
It should also be noted that the studies were theoretically for
demonstrating the energy advantages of SAPG. The scenarios set
To demonstrate the energy advantages of the SAPG, a case study
may be hard to implement in real case. For instance, the 100%
was carried out, using the THERMOSOLV software [1] developed by
replacement for all heaters will increase more than over 72 MWe
the authors, on the generation unit 3 of Loy Yang Power station, lo-
output (E report), but the real/existing turbine/generator may not
cated in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria Australia. The related data
have the room to increase such amount.
used in the case studies are shown in the Tables 1 and 2, which
are an approximate and for demonstration purposes only.
It is a typical 500 MWe brown coal-fired power generation unit 4. Exergy advantages of SAPG
with one reheater and six feedwater heaters (one of these is an
open type i.e., deaerator). Fig. 1 shows the steam cycle structure Normally the temperatures of the heat carrier attained by solar
diagram, which was generated by the ‘‘THERMOSOLV” software collectors are low. The flat-plate collector can supply hot liquid at
for this case. The unaltered unit originally generates up to 110 °C; the evacuated-tube collectors can supply fluid (liquid
500.353 MWe with the (steam) cycle thermal efficiency of or vapour) at a bit higher temperature and perform better. Recent
46.13%. The steam cycle thermal (i.e., the 1st law) efficiency calcu- advances in the performance of selective surfaces will allow high
lated by the ‘‘THERMOSOLV” is defined as: temperature (350 °C) to be achieved in evacuated tubular

sum of ðsteam specific enthalpy change cross each stage of turbine stages multiplied by mass flow through each stageÞ:
Efficiency ¼
ðsteam specific enthalpy change cross boiler for heating and reheating multiplied by boiler steam mass flowsÞ
 E. Hu et al. / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 2881–2885 2883

Fig. 1. Steam cycle structure diagram, generated by THERMOSOLV, for unit 3, Loy Yang Power.

Table 3
Results of the LoyYang power station study.

Type of replacement 100% replacement of all closed feed heaters 10% replacement of all closed feed heaters 100% replacement of IPH2 feedwater heater
E report Q report E report Q report E report Q report
Gen. output 572.5 MWe 500 MWe 507.34 Mwe 501.11 Mwe 521.5 Mwe 500.97 Mwe
Cycle eff. increasea 6.65% 6.65% 0.64% 0.64% 2.03% 2.03%
Add. gen. cap 72.18 Mwe 0.0 MWe 6.99 Mwe 0.75 MWe 21.115 Mwe 0.615 Mwe
Add. income $58M/year $0.61 M $5.6 M/year $0.61 M/ $17.1 M/ $ 0.5 M
CO2 reduction 0.0%/year 3.15/year% 0.0%/year 0.31%/year 0.04%/year 1.02%/year
Fuel savings $0/year $2.76 M/year $0/year $268,253/year 38,164/year $0.9 M/year
Collector area 977,896 m2 854,613 m2 93,792 m2 92,640 m2 227,892 m2 219,020 m2
Collector cost $116.4 M $101.7 M $11.3 M $11.1 M $25 M $24 M
Payback 1.99 years 36.8 years 2 years 12.7 years 1.46 years 17.25 years
a
The percentage point.

collectors with moderate concentration ratio [2,3]. At these tem- To illustrate the exergy advantages of the SAPE, let us examine a
perature levels, it is difficult to use it to generate power efficiently single-stage regenerative Rankine cycle with open feedwater hea-
and the power output is not stable all year-round either. The SAPG ter (Fig. 2).
is to use solar energy to replace some bleed steam in the regener- In energy system analysis, not only the quantity, but also the
ative Rankine cycle where the temperatures of the solar fluid and quality of energy should be assessed. The quality of an energy
the working fluid are matched. stream depends on the work (or work potential) available from
In the conventional regenerative Rankine cycle, the feedwater is
at a relatively low temperature and is heated by the steam ex-
tracted from the turbine. Since in the heaters the temperature pro-
files of feedwater and the extracted steam do not match well, there
Turbine Generator
is a large loss of exergy. The exergy loss in the heaters can be re- Boiler and
duced by increasing the number of extraction stages (and feed-
water heaters), but it can never be eliminated; Moreover, it is superheater
not practical to have a large number of extraction stages. This is
the place where the solar energy can fit in. The solar energy col-
lected by the collectors is hot enough to replace the extracted Condenser
steam to heat the feedwater in low temperature range, or even TH TL
in all, regenerative stages in the regenerative Rankine cycle. So, Feed water
using the heat carrier heated by solar energy to replace the ex- heater
tracted steam to heat the feedwater where the temperature pro- Pump
files of the two fluids are matched, and using the saved steam to
generate work sound perfect. Fig. 2. Single-stage regenerative Rankine cycle with open feedwater heater.
2884 E. Hu et al. / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 2881–2885

that stream. The capacity for the stream to do work depends on its Table 4
potential difference with its environment. If a unit of heat flows Some properties of the cycle.

from a source at a constant temperature TH to its environment at Point in Fig. 3 P (kPa, absolute) t (°C) h (kJ/kg)
temperature Ta, with a reversible heat engine, the maximum work 1. Turbine inlet 16500 538 3404.78
the heat energy can do, is called the availability and also called 2. Turbine exhaust 7 38.83 1993.92
exergy of the heat at the temperature TH In the case of using solar 3. Condensed water 7 38.83 162.7
energy (heat), the exergy in the solar irradiation, Exs, is [7]: 4. High pressure extracted steam 6000 369.82 3097.15
  5. High-stage heater outlet 6000 275.6 1213.4
4T a 6. Medium pressure extracted steam 1000 179.9 2701.53
Exs ¼ 1  ð1  0:28 ln f Þ Q s ð1Þ 7. Medium-stage heater outlet 1000 179.9 762.81
3Ts
8. Low pressure extracted steam 101.3 100 2326.44
where Ta is the ambient temperature and the Ts is the temperature 9. Low-stage heater outlet 101.3 100 419.04

of the sun, f is the dilution factor which equals 1.3  105, and Qs is
the solar heat.
In SAPG, the solar heat is used to replace the bled-off steam and
heat feed water, so that the solar heat Qs equals:
Q s ¼ m  Dh ¼ m  cðT H  T L Þ
where m is the mass (or flow rate) of the feedwater in the feedwater
heater, c is the mean specific heat capacity of the feed water, Dh is
the specific enthalpy change of the feed water cross the feedheater.
The net solar exergy efficiency of the SAPG system is then:
DW
gsex ¼
Exs
where DW is the extra work generated by the turbine due to the
saved bled-off steam.
Owing to the irreversibility, the exergy efficiency of using the
solar energy in the regenerative Rankine cycle is certainly less than
the above value. The study of the following case demonstrates the
exergy advantage of the concept in practice.
5. An example—a multi-stage regenerative system
Here is an example of using the solar energy in a three-stage
regenerative Rankine cycle. Assuming that the state of the working
fluid at every point of the system does not change with or without
solar-aided feedwater heating, only the flow rate changes (with the
solar energy aided, the flow rate will increase in the turbine). The
pattern is shown in Fig. 3. Some important properties are listed
in Table 4.
Without the solar energy aided, the conventional regenerative
Rankine cycle yields work:
W 0 ¼ h1  h4 þ ð1  m1 Þðh4  h6 Þ þ ð1  m1  m2 Þðh6  h8 Þ
þ ð1  m1  m2  m3 Þðh8  h2 Þ
¼ 1084:96 kJ=ðkg steam in boilerÞ
Note: the weight fraction of the extracted steam m1 = 0.193 m2 = 0.1215,
m3 = 0.0812.
Assuming the ambient temperature is 25 °C (298 K), and the
ð2Þ
temperature difference for heat transfer in the condenser is
10 °C. When aided heat is used, assuming the average temperature
difference for heat transfer in heaters is 10 °C for liquid heat car-
rier, let us investigate the following cases.
From above cases, it can be seen, in Table 5, that using the low
temperature thermal energy to heat the feedwater in the regener-
ð3Þ ative Rankine cycle, the values of exergy efficiency is quite
high, comparing to other solar thermal power generation systems
[4–7].
From the thermodynamic point of view, generally using liquid
as the heat carrier for solar energy in these systems is better than
using vapour. With SAPG, we can use water (liquid) rather than
other low-boiling point substance as working fluid and do not need
to use the more sophisticated vapour-generating collectors.
With a little advanced collector, the medium and even high
temperature fluid can be made easily. When high temperature heat
carrier of the solar energy can be provided, it is suggested to install
the multi-stage collectors with different temperature levels to heat
the feedwater serially in the multi-stage heaters (see also Fig. 3).
One advantage of this multi-stage design is the system can be
made more flexible so particular stage(s) of extracted steam can
be closed according to the load demand in practice. If the va-
pour/steam can be generated by the (solar) collectors, the pattern
of multi-stage collectors with different temperature levels is pref-
erable as the solar net exergy efficiencies of the multi-stage sys-
tems are much higher than that of the one-stage system, and the
more the stages, the higher the efficiencies.
In the calculations leading to the Table 5, we adopted the point
that the exergy of the heat source, the solar energy, should be iden-
tical regardless of the temperatures of the heat carrier the collector
can yield, i.e., Eq. (1) is used.

Fig. 3. A three-stage regenerative condensing-steam Rankine cycle.

 E. Hu et al. / Applied Energy 87 (2010) 2881–2885 2885

Table 5 thetical cases studies. By using solar energy to replace the

Analyses on solar aided systems. extracted steam in order to heat the feedwater in a regenerative
Case 1 Case 2 Rankine plant cycle, the energy and exergy efficiencies of the
Phase of the heat carrier of the aided energy Liquid Liquid power station can be improved. The higher the temperature aided
Highest temperature of the aided energy, °C 110 286 heat source is, the more beneficial the system can generate. It can
The stage(s) closed Stage 3 only All stages be seen that the low-grade energy, e.g. solar heat nd other possible
Extra work done by the saved steam DW, kJ/(kg 27 325.9 waste heat, is a valuable source of work if it can be used properly.
steam generated in boiler)
The aided solar heat input Qs, kJ/(kg steam 175.72 1050.7
This ‘‘aided” concept has special meanings for solar energy. For in
generated in boiler) summer weather, both the solar radiation and the electrical load
Thermal efficiency of the solar energy in the 15.37 30.12 demand peak, and it is easy to make heat carrier in different tem-
aided system gI (gI = DW/Q), % peratures with different type of collectors. So the increased solar
Exergy contained in the aided solar energy Exs, 163.1 975.4
radiation can supply the increased energy to meet the increased
kJ/(kg steam generated in boiler), using
Eq. (1): power demand. In addition, the solar aided system can also elimi-
Net solar exergy efficiency in the SAPG, %, gsex 16.6 33.4 nate the variability in power output when the power is generated
in Eq. (3) by other cycles heated by solar energy alone. The concept of the so-
Work increased (comparing with the 2.5 30.04 lar aided power system is really a superior energy system and is a
conventional regenerative Rankine cycle)
new approach for solar energy power generation.
(DW/W0), %

Acknowledgement
If there is other waste heat sources available, instead of the so-
The authors would like to thank Dr. Ying You of Quantum En-
lar heat, then the exergy input i.e., Exs or Exwasteheat should be calcu-
lated, instead of Eq. (1), using: ergy for his original contribution to this topic.
Z TH   Z TH
Ta cdT TH References
Exwasteheat ¼ 1 dq ¼ q  T a ¼ q  T 0 c ln
TL T TL T TL
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TH concept for coal fired power stations. Macro Rev 2003;16(1):19–23.
¼ cðT H  T L Þ  T a c ln
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6. Conclusions

The paper shows the advantages of solar aided power genera-

tion concept in the aspects of its energy and exergy, through hypo-