A simulation tool for concentrated solar power based on micro gas turbine engines

In the scenario of the small scale 3-35 kWe concentrated solar power plant based on point receiver technologies; the dish-Stirling configuration is one of the most commonly adopted one. New and clean efficiency of these Stirling engines is typically of 30-40%. Yearly average efficiency, during the system operations, is significantly reduced to 10-15% due to the Stirling engines high maintenance costs and poor reliability issues. These drawbacks limit the small scale dish-Stirling engines market attractiveness. The adoption of cheap, reliable and widely available engines, such as micro gas turbines is a promising solution for substituting Stirling engines since it ensures constant performance over time. Since micro gas turbines for concentrated solar power plant: equipped with dish concentrator have not been widely deployed, the development of a plant simulator is helpful for predicting the overall concentrated solar power plant performance and for optimizing the plant operation: under different boundary conditions. The plant simulator is aimed to demonstrate the economic viability and the technical feasibility of dish - micro gas turbine systems. The paper includes the methods for developing a simulation tool for solar dish- micro gas turbine applications.. The solar concentrator, receiver/absorber, micro gas turbine, high speed generator and power electronic systems have been modelled and the plant simulator has been set-up by means of a quadratic programming technique. The simulator has been used to perform steady state simulations for predicting the performance and for ensuring a safe and reliable power plant operation when the direct normal irradiation changes. The results for a net generated power of about 6 kWe have shown a nominal peak efficiency of about 10%, making this micrc gas turbine solar plant layout market attractive.