Design and Performance of a Parabolic trough System for Process Heat Application

Abstract

The worldwide energy demand is rapidly increasing, increasing in turn the necessity of power generation. The generated power is used to fulfill domestic and industrial needs. Industries use electricity for medium scale heating applications, which is the worst use of electricity. Concentrated solar power can prove itself a superior alternative of electrical heating load, being the only technology which produces high quality heat. In this paper, a systematic design approach of a parabolic trough based solar field for a defined thermal load is presented. The performance simulation of the field has been done for a small scale, medium temperature industrial drying process of 290 kWth at 120oC, located in Bhopal using System Advisor Model (SAM), was found to be 23% efficient. The results can be used as a roadmap for designers for the feasibility analysis of local industrial application