Prospective fully-coupled multi-level analytical methodology for concentrated solar power plants: Applications

Highlights: • Hybrid multi-dimensional model (0-1-2-3 Model) is applied to DSG-PTC-CSP plant. • Performance prediction along with targeting insight of CSP plant is addressed. • Thermal bending of HCE makes exergy efficiency of the plant reduced by 0.25%. • The overall performance on summer and winter solstices is investigated. - Abstract: Reliability is of primary significance for running a concentrated solar power (CSP) plant. The fully-coupled multi-level analytical methodology, covering system-level performance prediction and component-level targeting insight, is regarded as the most effective solution against unreliability. Herein, we address these issues in a direct steam generation (DSG) system with parabolic trough collectors (PTCs) by applying the previously-proposed hybrid multi-dimensional model (0-1-2-3 Model) to automatically on-line monitor the loop sections suffering from riskily excessive thermal-stress, including the evaporation stage with two-phase stratified flow and superheating stage with the highest thermal load, and the thermo-hydraulic characteristics along the loop under cloud-shading condition. Due to the fact that the radial thermal deformation of receiver tube can reach up to 1.78 cm, the energy and exergy efficiencies could therefore be reduced by 0.84% and 0.42% for solar field, and 0.24% and 0.25% for the whole plant, respectively. In addition, the overall performance of a 50-MWe DSG-PTC-CSP plant in North China is predicted on two typical days. On summer solstice, the daily average energy efficiency and exergy efficiency are 18.37% and 19.78%, respectively. They, however, decrease to 10.81% and 11.53%, respectively on winter solstice. The overall performance prediction guarantees the real-time evaluation of the CSP plant.