Study the effects of physical parameters on performance in the divergent solar chimney

Abstract

The massive uses of fossil fuels mainly the petroleum products are working as a catalyst for depleting of the amount of its reserve. The excessive use of these petroleum products are also employed as potential sources emissions of greenhouse gases that leads to the global warming, floods and acid rain. Therefore, the renewable energy sources become one of the suitable valid options to reduce the dependency on the fossil fuels or petroleum products. According to the report of the International Renewable Energy agency, the world is going to harvest 40% of energy from the renewable energy sources by 2030. Among all the renewable energy sources, extraction of energy from solar by using PV technology become famous in many countries where average daylight is about 5 to 6 hours and the place is situated in the topical region. In the solar PV technology, per unit (kWh) of electricity generation cost is significantly higher than the traditional sources. Alternative option, like solar chimney power generation system can be suitable options but the contraction and maintenance are challenging. Numbers of prototype model of solar chimneys are developed and tested by different researchers, whereas there is not signification solution yet established. The aim of this paper is analysis the experimental data obtained from different types of divergent solar chimney. Three different model chimneys are design and developed in Energy Research Laboratory, under faculty of engineering, University Malaysia Sabah. The air flow rates in the chimneys are tested under different heat load and opening area. The experimental results showed that chimney with higher heat load and higher opening area has better performance than other models.