Modeling of integrated solar combined cycle power plant (ISCC) of Hassi R'mel, Algeria

Abstract

Purpose Integrated solar combined cycle (ISCC) using parabolic trough collector (PTC) technology is a new power plant that has been installed in few countries to benefit from the use of hybrid solar-gas systems. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the challenges in modeling the thermal output of the hybrid solar-gas power plant and to analyze the factors that influence them. Design/methodology/approach To validate the proposal, a study was conducted on a test stand in situ and based on the statistical analysis of meteorological data of the year 2017. Such data have been brought from Abener hybrid solar-gas central of Hassi R’mel and used as an input of our model. Findings The proposal made by the authors has been simulated using MATLAB environment. The simulation results show that the net solar electricity reaches 18 per cent in June, 15 per cent in March and September, while it cannot exceed 8 per cent in December. Moreover, it shows that the power plant responses sensibly to solar energy, where the electricity output increases accordingly to the solar radiation increase. This increase in efficiency results in better economic utilization of the solar PTC equipment in such kind of hybrid solar-gas power plant. Practical implications The obtained results would be expected to provide the possibility for designing other power plants in Algeria when such conditions are met (high DNI, low wind speed, water and natural-gas availability). Originality/value This paper presents a new model able to predict the thermal solar energy and the net solar-electricity efficiency of such kind solar hybrid power plant.