PARABOLIC TROUGH SOLAR COLLECTOR INTEGRATED WITH SOLAR POND FOR ELECTRICITY AND HYDROGEN PRODUCTION BASED ON SOLAR ENERGY

Abstract

In this work, electricity, hydrogen production performance of parabolic trough solar collectors (PTSCs) integrated with a solar pond is researched. The system consists of the PTSCs with the surface area of 100 m2, a solar pond with the surface area of 100 m2, an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) which is operated with n-butane for electricity production, and a proton exchange membrane (PEM). In order to improve the overall system performance, n-butane is selected as working fluid in the ORC and the waste heat of the ORC is used in the mushroom production unit. In addition, the low-temperature water coming from the solar pond was circulated to the PTSCs via a pump and the temperature of the water was increased by the PTSCs. Thus, the temperature of this preheated water is upgraded by the PTSCs, and it increase the electricity performance of the ORC. The electricity is used to produce hydrogen by PEM. The analyses of the integrated system are determined with Engineering Equation Solver (EES) for a daily solar energy in July. So, an integrated energy generation system is simulated and it is occurred entirely of renewable energy systems. As a result, it has been found that if the integrated system components are improved, the heat, electricity and hydrogen production can be increased considerably. © 2022 Proceedings of WHEC 2022 - 23rd World Hydrogen Energy Conference: Bridging Continents by H2. All rights reserved.