Technical Note

Modeling and simulation of 1 MW DAHAN solar thermal power tower plant

Ershu Xu
a,
*
, Qiang Yu
a
, Zhifeng Wang
a
, Chenyao Yang
b
a
Key Laboratory of Solar Thermal Energy and Photovoltaic System of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Electrical Engineering, 6 Beiertiao,
Zhongguancun, Beijing 100190, China
b
North China Electric Power University, Beijing 100120, China
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 28 December 2009
Accepted 4 August 2010
Keywords:
Solar tower plant
Central receiver
Modeling
Simulation
a b s t r a c t
1 MW Dahan solar thermal power tower plant is modeled from mathematical models for all of the
working conditions using the modular modeling method. The dynamic and static characteristics of the
power plant are analyzed based on these models. Response curves of the system state parameters are
given for different solar irradiance disturbances. Conclusions in this paper are good references for the
design of solar thermal power tower plant.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
With the rapid development of modernization, the energy
consumption per capita in China has been increased remarkably.
Thus, China is faced with increasing pressure in dealing with the
exhaustion of energy resources and climate change. This problem
could be quickly avoided by accelerating the development and utili-
zation of renewable energy. Solar thermal power is a relatively cheap
and environmentally-friendly renewable energy technology that
heavily affects energy conservation and environmental protection.
1 MW Dahan solar thermal power tower plant is supported by
Solar Thermal Power Technology and System Demonstration
project, which is the key listed project of the 11th Five-Year Plan of
China National Hi-TechR&D(863Plan) [1]. It is the rst solar thermal
power plant in China. The plants development and related plat-
forms will greatly affect the development of solar thermal power
technology in China. In 2010, the plant is scheduled to operate and
combine with power grid line in Yanqing district, Beijing. The entire
system is modeled and simulated at the design stage to check for
reasonable designing, operating, and control strategy. Also, the
validated model could be used to amend further development.
2. 1 MW solar thermal power tower plant [1e3]
The Dahan solar power tower plant is mainly consisted of the
collector system, thermal storage system, and power and auxiliary
system. The collector system is composed of a heliostat eld which
has one hundred of 100 m
2
tracking heliostats and a tower. The
mirror reectivity of heliostat is 0.9 and the eld cosine boundary is
0.842. The mean annual optical efciency is 73.1%. The receiver is
installed at 92 m high from the ground on the tower. The receiver
tilt angle is 25

and the receiver aperture size is 25 m

2
. Also the
mean annual efciency of the receiver is 90%, which could generate
8 t/h of superheated steam (2.8 MPa, 400

C). The tower height is
118 m. Three positions (64 m, 78 mand 92 m) are selected in Dahan
power plant tower to install the receivers for researching the
various types of receivers. The thermal storage system is the
combination of high and low temperature subsystems. The high
temperature subsystem was made by use of two surface heat
exchangers, two pumps, and two oil storage tanks. Heat transfer oil
is used as working uid to store and transfer heat energy, in which
the superheated steam (2.5 MPa, 400

C) is generated by using the
receiver ow to the heat exchanger. The majority of the thermal
energy (400e261.4

C) is stored in hot oil tanks. The low temper-
ature subsystem is the steam accumulator (volume of 100 m
3
),
which stores the saturated steam from the exchanger (a). The
saturated water is used as the working mass to store thermal
energy. When solar energy becomes decient, saturated steam
(2.35 MPa, 220.7

C) produced by the steam accumulator is sent to
the exchanger (c) and overheated to 320

C by the hot oil (350

C).
Afterwards, the steam ows into the turbine and the cooled oil
(240

C) returns to the cold oil tank. When thermal energy in the
high temperature system is insufcient to meet the inlet temper-
ature required by the turbine, then the boiler would provide the
demanding heat. The Dahan power plant has 8.4 t/h oil-red boiler
and a 1 MWsteam-turbine generator of which the efciency is 22%.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 86 10 62558289; fax: 86 10 62587946.
E-mail address: xuershu@sohu.com (E. Xu).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Renewable Energy
j ournal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ renene
0960-1481/$ e see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.renene.2010.08.010
Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 848e857