Processes development for high temperature solar thermal kalina power station

Abstract

Kalina cycle system operates at a heat source temperature up to 600 °C with an improved heat recovery. The current work focuses on thermodynamic processes development and assessment of a Kalina cycle system configuration to augment the power from a heat recovery of solar thermal collectors operating from 250 °C to 600 °C. There are three pressure levels in current cycle i. e. high pressure, intermediate pressure, and low pressure. The superheated vapor expands from high pressure to low pressure and the separator is located at intermediate pressure. The current work develops a new methodology for thermodynamic evaluation with more flexibility compared to the reported method in literature. Separator inlet condition (temperature and concentration), turbine inlet condition (pressure, temperature and concentration) and solar radiation have been identified as key parameters for the plant evaluation. The performance is improving with an increase in separator temperature, turbine inlet pressure, source temperature and solar radiation. But it is decreasing with an increase in separator and turbine inlet concentrations. The cycle efficiency, plant efficiency and specific power have been found as 23.5%, 7.5%, and 675 kW at 0.3 separator concentration and 0.5 turbine concentration.