The use of central receiver system (CRS) for electricity production promises to be one of the most viable options to replace fossil fuel power plants. Indeed, research and development activities on its basic subsystems have been booming rapidly since 1980s. This paper reviews the most important studies on the major components of central receiver solar thermal power plants including the heliostat field, the solar receiver and the power conversion system. After an overview of Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technology, current status and applications of the CRSs are highlighted. Next, a detailed literature survey of existing design comprising optical, thermal and thermodynamic analysis, and techniques used to assess components have been arranged. This is followed by experimental investigations in which design concepts are established. The last section contains recent subsequent improvement of such key components as heliostat, receiver and hybrid solar gas turbine that are boosting in many R&D activities merging international collaboration during the past 30 years.

A review of studies on central receiver solar thermal power plants

Solar air heaters (SAHs) form the foremost component of solar energy utilization system. These air heaters absorb the irradiance and convert it into thermal energy at the absorbing surface and then transfer this energy to a fluid flowing through the collector. SAHs are inexpensive and most used collection devices because of their inherent simplicity. SAHs are found in several solar energy applications, especially for space heating, timber seasoning and agriculture drying. It has been observed by studying the previous literature that all the elements of a solar air heater such as; an absorber tray, the ducts, glazing, insulation, extended surfaces, as well as the tilt angle, have a significant effect on the thermal performance of the system. This review article focus on the developments that has followed round the globe in various aspects of solar air heating systems since 1877 up to now, with a glimpse of some novel patents of SAHs. The various methods that are used to improve the thermal performance of SAHs such as; optimizing the dimensions of the air heater construction elements, use of extended surfaces with different shapes and dimensions, use of sensible or latent storage media, use of concentrators to augment the available solar radiation, integrating photovoltaic elements with the heaters, etc, are also reported. Besides this, some benefits by using the SAHs has been discussed.

A thermodynamic review of solar air heaters

Pollution and increasing fuel prices are the main focus for governments today. The main cause of pollution is existing electricity power plants that use huge quantities of fossil fuel. A new strategy should be applied in the coming decades based on the integration of existing power plants with renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind energy. Hybridization of existing power plants with solar energy is one proven option to overcome the problems of pollution and increasing fuel prices. In this paper, a review of the previous studies and papers for integrating solar thermal energy with conventional and non-conventional power plants was carried out. The focus on hybrid solar conventional power plants includes: the review of studies of hybrid solar–steam cycle power plants, integrated solar combined-cycle systems (ISCCS) and hybrid solar–gas turbine power plants, while for hybrid solar non-conventional power plants the focus of study is hybrid solar–geothermal power plants. The most successful option is ISCCS due to their advantages and the plans for implementation at various power plants in the world like in Tunisia, Egypt, Spain, and Iran.

Advances in the integration of solar thermal energy with conventional and non-conventional power plants

H. Brandt

Papers

A solar energy collector for heating air

Solar-fossil HYBRID system analysis: Performance and economics

The effect of substrate surface preparation on the optical properties of a black chrome solar absorber coating