Design and Sizing Characteristics of a Solar Thermal Power Plant with Parabolic

Trough Collectors for a Typical Site in Palestine

Aysar M. Yasina and Osama I. Draidia

a Energy Engineering and Environment Department, An Najah National University-Nablus
Email: [email protected] (corresponding author)

Abstract. The concentrated solar power (CSP) The Electrical Energy in Palestine represents about 31% of
technology has been implemented in some countries and total energy consumed. The available electrical energy is
proved good effectiveness. Palestine has enormous insufficient to cover the needs of the local market especially
potential in solar energy which makes CSP technology one the growth in electricity consumption reaches about 7%. High
of the feasible options to mitigate the crisis of electricity tariff imposed from the IEC compared with neighbor countries
shortage and reduce the dependability on Israeli Electric and no purchase agreement with IEC. Gaza power plant
Company. suffers from continuous interruptions as the diesel is not
available all the time [1, 2].
The main objective of this research is to perform a design and
sizing of solar thermal power plant with parabolic trough The world interest in the alternative clean energies sources
collectors (PTC) without storage system for Jericho region in has been increased due to the rising up in energy consumption,
Palestine. This site is proposed due to larger area of land environmental issues, and also due to the predicted depletion
availability and its closeness to national grid. of the conventional energy sources in the near future.
The initial nominal power demand of the proposed solar thermal
plant is 10 MWe functioning in a Rankine cycle using Therminol The generation using clean, secure, reliable, and affordable
VP1 thermal oil (HTF) as working fluid. The average monthly renewable energy sources can assist countries to meet their
power of the designed plant is 9.98 MW. The capacity factor of sustainable development goals. An integration of existing
the proposed power plant comes out to be 36%. The design power plants with renewable energy such as wind and solar
comprises 20 collector loops with 4 parabolic trough collectors sources is going to be considered as a new strategy should be
(PTC) per loop. applied in the upcoming years.
Economic analysis is conducted: The levelized cost of electricity
Palestine has a high solar thermal energy potential which is
generation by the proposed solar thermal power plant (LCOE) is
around 5.46 kWh/m2.day and the main solar thermal
found to be 0.16 $/kWh. The annual electricity generation is
about 31.5 GWh and the capital recovery factor is 0.106. applications is water heating, space heating, crop and
vegetable drying and green house agriculture.
Keywords—direct normal irradiance (DNI), concentrated solar
power, parabolic trough collector (PTC), solar thermal power (STP) Utilizing renewable energy for electricity generation is the
and Economic analysis. main motivation behind making Palestinian Renewable
Energy Strategy by PEA. The objective of this strategy is to o
I. INTRODUCTION generate 240 GWh electricity from renewable energy sources
RES which represents about 10% of electrical energy demand
Palestine is suffering from severe shortage of conventional by 2020[3].
energy sources, this powers the growing interest to generate
Utilizing concentrated solar thermal power (CSP)
electric power from green energies. Palestine buys all of its
technology is considered in renewable energy RE strategy
needs of fossil fuels from Israel and imports about 90% of its
which represents about 15% (20MW) from the predicted
electricity demand from Israel Electricity Company (IEC).
generated power [3].
The only Palestinian electricity production is from the Gaza
Worldwide CSP technology has attracted researchers and
power plant, with 140 MW of production total capacity which
utilities which in role participates in increasing public and
covers a part of Gaza city and other surrounding areas [1].
private initiatives towards furthering researches in the field of
Palestinian Energy Authority PEA signed two agreements
CSP and CSP projects implementation [4, 5].
with Egypt and Jordan to supply Rafah (south of Gaza) by 33
kV overhead 17 MW and to supply Jericho in the West Bank
Pilot plants and projects have been installed in many
by 33 kV overhead 20 MW, respectively [2].
countries and now CSP is a well-known and reliable
technology, although new CSP technologies and large power
plants are being experimented [6].
 It is located 230 m below sea level. Jericho is an attractive
The CSP systems make use of concentrating mirrors to place because of constant sunshine and abundant water from
collect the sunlight as heat. This collected heat raises the the spring. The average annual temperature in Jericho is nearly
temperature of a working fluid significantly high. A to 23°C. The average temperature in January is 13.9°C and in
conventional thermal power block extracts the heat from July about 30.2°C [8].
working fluid and drives a steam engine [7]. The site selection for constructing a Parabolic Trough Solar
Collector (PTSC) is subjected to some essential requirements
Three main types of CSP plant technology were developed which must be fulfilled in order to ensure the economic power
and commercialized so far, can be identified [7]: Troughs, generation [9-13]:
Towers and Dishes. Among them Parabolic Trough Solar The direct normal irradiation (DNI) should be greater than
Collector (PTSC) is currently the most proven solar thermal 1900 kWh/m2/year (5.2 kWh/m2/day) and wind speed
should be less than 15.64 m/s which is applied to Jericho
electric technology.
that has an annual direct normal radiation 2071
kWh/m /year [8] and annual wind speed 1.25 m/s [14]. The
2

This paper presents design and sizing characteristics of a support structure of solar collector assembly is designed to
grid connected solar thermal power plant with parabolic withstand certain wind load.
trough collectors for a typical site in Palestine with a net
capacity of 10 MW. Jericho city is selected due to larger area To get maximum incident solar radiation, one axis sun
of land availability and because it is a deserted flat land tracking mechanism should be used.
located in the vicinity of the main Jericho's electrical Flat land with an overall slope of less than 1 - 3%. Jericho
substation. is considered one of flat areas in Palestine with slope
inclination 1.4 %.
The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 discusses the Availability of convenient grid connection, this is applied
selected site data and characteristics. The description of solar in the proposed site as it is close to the general grid of
thermal power plant is addressed in Section 3. Section 4 Jericho city.[2]
discusses the design and sizing of a solar field of the
cylindrical parabolic collector. The pipes layout is addressed The proposed site in Jericho province has enough water
in section 5. Section 6 discusses the financial evaluation of resources and good transportation facilities.
CSP technologies; and finally the conclusion of the study is Availability of back up fuel.
addressed in Section 7.
III. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
II. SEELCTED SITE DATA AND CHARACTERSTICS
Palestine lies on the western edge of the Asian continent and
the eastern extremity of the Mediterranean Sea, between Great resemblance between conventional fossil-fuel power
34º20’– 35º30’ E and 31º10’– 32º30’ N. Palestine’s elevation plant and solar thermal power plant (STPP), the main
ranges from 300 m below sea level in the Jordan Valley, to sea difference is in heat generation method. Conventional power
level along the Gaza Strip seashore, reaching 1000 m above sea generation uses the heat source from burning the fossil fuels
level in some locations in West Bank. while STPP uses radiant energy from the sun. A description of
STPP is illustrated in Figure 2.
The location of the proposed concentrated solar thermal
power plant is Jericho city which considered one of the main
provinces of Palestine. Jericho city is located near the Jordan
River as shown in Figure 1 in the West Bank.

Figure 2 Description of solar thermal power plant without

storage
The main parts of the system are: the solar field, power
block which contains heat exchanger (as steam boiler),
turbine, condenser, pump and generator.
Figure 1 Jericho Location in the Map [8]
 A heat transfer fluid (HTF) gains heat as it goes through Table3 shows the technical characteristics of the cylindrical
the collectors and passes it to the power block by using heat parabolic collector [18].
exchanger which is resulting in generating high-pressure
steam. The steam is then fed to turbine/generator to produce Table 3 Technical Characteristics of the Cylindrical Parabolic
electricity. The spent steam from the turbine is condensed in a Collector
standard condenser connected to a mechanical draft wet Length of collector (m) 150
cooling tower and then it returned to the heat exchangers Opening width (m) 5.77
through pumps to be transformed back into steam [15]. Opening area (m2) 817.5
Outer diameter of the receiver (m) 0.07
Inner diameter of the receiver (m) 0.065
IV. DESIGN AND SIZING OF A SOLAR THERMAL POWER STATION
Optical efficiency 0.77
WITH CYLINDRICAL PARABOLIC COLLECTORS
Overall thermal loss coefficient at Tabs=370ºC 5.5
The design of a solar field is influenced by technical and Tamb=20ºC, (W/m2C)
characteristics of the selected collectors, the location of the Dirt factor 0.97
plant and the climate data. All these parameters are called Incidence angle modifier for 18.7 º 0.97
design-point conditions. Table1 shows the set data of the Receiver rugosity (m) 4.6·10-5
proposed solar thermal power plant. Length of the connection pipe between the 11
collectors (m)
Table 1 Set Data for the Solar Thermal Power Plant Number of 90º elbows between collectors 11
Power capacity of the solar thermal power plant 10 MW
The inlet temperature in the solar field 293ºC The next step is the determination of the optimum design for
The outlet temperature from the solar field 393ºC the plant. The useful energy gain of the collector is
The selection of inlet and outlet temperatures are based on calculated using eqn(1) [18]:
heat transfer fluid (HTF) which is Therminol VP-1. The VP-1
operates on two phases, liquid phase lies between (12ºC -
400ºC) and vapor phase lies between (260ºC - 400ºC) [16]. In
this paper, the vapor phase has been selected as one of
operating conditions of this solar thermal power plant (STPP). Where FR is the collector heat removal factor, Aa is aperture
area of concentrator 817.5 m2, Ar is the receiver area =
To select the suitable temperature of the fluid at the solar field 3.85·10-3 m2, Ti is the fluid inlet temperature 293 ºC, Ta is
outlet, it must be at least 15 ºC higher than the demanded ambient temperature 35 ºC, UL is the heat loss coefficient 5.5
steam temperature by the process to be supplied to compensate W/m2· ºC and S is absorbed solar radiation which can be
the thermal loss between the solar field outlet and steam calculated using eqn(2).
generator inlet which is 5-7 ºC [6]. In this paper a superheated
steam has been selected as a working fluid for the block power
at 378 ºC.
Optical parameters comprise absorbance (α = 0.94),
The selected solar collector model is EUROTROUGH because transmittance (τ = 0.945), reflectance ( = 0.92), intercept
of its high-performance and flexibility as it can work for both (
utility scale and industrial process applications. Operating factor ( = 0.92) and incident angle modifier = 1) are
temperatures over 500°C may be reached with optical considered in the calculation of absorbed radiation [19].
concentration of 82:1[17]. The structure geometry is
compatible with the standard receiver tubes and mirror panels Literature survey reveals that the design point for parabolic
of the market [17]. Table2 summarizes the characteristics of trough solar field is June, 12 'o'clock in the noon. The incident
the proposed solar field. radiation ( ) on the selected site at design point is 730 W/m2-
Table 2 Data of the Solar Field day. Solving eqn. (1) for the design point gives the useful heat
Type of collector EUROTROUGH gain (Qu) to be 432 kW per collector.
Thermal fluid Therminol VP-1
The output temperature of a collector To is found to be 25ºC
Limit temperature of the fluid 398ºC using eqn. (3).:
Specific heat of the fluid at 343ºC 2.436 kJ/kgºC
Orientation of the collector axis (of the E-W
field)
Configuration of the supply pipes Central feeding Where To is outlet temperature, Ti is inlet temperature, m is
Nominal mass flow per collector loop 7 kg/s mass flow rate of HTF and cp is specific heat capacity of HTF.
The values of these parameters are shown in Table 2. The
number of collectors per loop is 4 as the desired outlet
temperature of 393 ºC (total rise is 100 ºC). Figure 3 shows
the collector loop configuration to give a total rise of 100 ºC in
the HTF temperature.

Figure 4 Direct-return Piping Layout

The reverse-return layout is shown in Figure 5. It has an

inherently more balanced flow. While balancing valves
may still be required, the pressure loss is much lower than
Figure 3 A collector loop raising the temperature of HTF by in a direct-return configuration. Additional heat loss due to
100 ºC. The extra length of piping at the solar field inle, although
this greatly depends on the solar field inlet temperature. If
The thermal energy required from the solar field is 33MW and this temperature is low, additional heat loss is negligible
it is estimated using eqn.(4). [22].

Where the proposed STPP net power is 10 MW, electrical

generator efficiency = 0.96 (nominal), boiler efficiency = 0.90
[20], turbine efficiency = 0.37 [20], electrical parasitics = 0.65
MW [11].

The total number of collector loops required to provide this

thermal energy is 19 and this given by the following relation.
Number of loops required = (Pth / Output power per collector) / Figure 5 Reverse-return Piping Layout
No. of collectors per loop
The center-feed configuration is shown in Figure 6. It is the
most widely used layout for large solar fields. The pressure
V. PIPES LAYOUT loss also in the solar field is greater which requires
After sizing the solar field, the layout of piping must be taken installaitions of balancing valves at the row inlets.
into account. Three basic layouts are used in solar fields with This layout minimizes the total amount of piping because
PTCs. In the three layouts, the hot outlet piping is shorter than there is no pipe running the length of the collector row. There
the cold inlet piping to minimize thermal losses [22]. is also direct access to each collector row without buried
pipes.
The common piping layouts are the direct-return piping
layout, reverse-return piping layout and the center-feed piping
Layout.

The Direct-return piping layout configuration is shown in

Figure 4. It is considered the simplest and probably the most
widely used in small solar field scales. Its main disadvantage
is that there is a greater difference in the pressure between the
inlets in parallel rows. Balancing valves must be used to keep Figure 6 Center-feed Piping Layout
flow rates the same in each row. These valves cause a
significant pressure drop at the beginning of the array, which In this paper, the central feeding piping configuration has
in turn will contribute to the total system loss pressure. The been selected for its characteristics and a “T” field layout is
result is higher parasitic energy consumption than for the selected for the collector field [12] which requires an equal
reverse-return layout, where the fluid enters the collector array number of collector distribution to ensure uniform hydraulic
at the opposite end [22]. balance in the system. Hence the number of collector loops is
modified to 20. Calculating the output power generated with VI. FINANCIAL EVALUATION OF CSP TECHNOLOGIES
20 loops gives 11 MW net. The “I” layout of the solar
collector field is shown in Figure 7.
In the previous sections of the paper, the metrological data and
technical details of the proposed STPP in Jericho are
described. The annual electricity generation (AEG) by the
proposed STPP can be estimated using eqn.(6):

Where Pcsp represents the capacity of the CSP system and

CFcsp the capacity factor of the CSP system which is found to
be 0.36.
The levelized cost of energy (LCOE) is the most commonly
used parameter for the feasibility study of the solar thermal
power plant, it can be estimated using eqn.(7)[24]. LCOE can
be significantly affected by the inputs and assumptions
proposed [24].

Where Ccsp represents the capital cost of CSP system,

the annual operational and maintenance cost, and CRF the
capital recovery factor which can be estimated as shown in
Figure 7 Solar field layout of the proposed design
eqn.(8).
Table 4 shows the average of monthly electrical power
generated of the proposed parabolic trough solar thermal
power plant (PTSTPP) based on average direct normal
irradiation [8] and average sun hours [14] via equation (5):- Where d is the discount rate and tcsp the useful lifetime of the
CSP system.
Pavg_load = Qth_col*total collectors* ηelect.gen * ηturbine * ηBoiler
To evaluate numbers of years needed for the investment to be
paid back, discount payback period (DPP) in a CSP project
Table 4 Average Monthly Output Power
Month Average Direct Average Average can be determined using eqn.(9) [25].
Normal Irradiation Sun Pout
[kWh/m2] hours [MW]
January 116 5.9 9.60
February 118 6.5 9.64
Where Bi represents the annual benefit accrued to the investor
March 152 7.0 10.6
=
April 156 9.0 8.80 by selling the electricity generated by CSP system, Ci ( )
May 212 9.8 10.6 represents the annual cost of operation and maintenance of the
June 256 11.0 11.74 CSP project. Bi can be estimated using eqn.(10).
July 251 11.3 10.85
August 228 10.8 10.30
September 189 9.1 10.48
October 144 8.5 8.30
Where is the purchase price of electricity delivered by the
November 127 8.2 7.82 CSP system. The benefit to cost (B/C) ratio of the CSP system
December 121 6.0 9.84 has been determined eqn.(11).
Total 2071 8.6 9.98
The net annual benefit accrued to the investor (Bi-Ci) assumed The discounted payback period (DPP), annual benefit accrued
to be uniform over the useful life of the CSP project. to the investor (Bi), benefit to cost ratio (B/C), and net present
value (NPV) are affected by purchase price of electricity
The following expression has been used to determine Net delivered by the STPP (Pe) which in turn leads to viability of
present value (NPV) of the CSP system. scenario 2 and C due to given incentives rather than scenario
3.
VII. CONCLUSION
This paper discusses sizing and design characteristics of a
solar thermal power plant in Jericho (Palestine) using
parabolic trough collectors. It is found that 20 collector loops
The salvage value of the CSP system at the end of its useful with 4 parabolic trough collectors per loop are needed to
life has been assumed to be negligibly small. Therefore, it has generate 10MW. The central feeding piping configuration has
been omitted from the NPV equation.
been selected for its characteristics and a “T” field layout is
Table 5 shows the input parameters used in the techno- selected for the collector field.
economic evaluation of the proposed STPP.
The average of monthly electrical power generated of the
Table 5 Techno-economic evaluation parameters of STPP proposed parabolic trough solar thermal power plant is
Parameters Symbol Value estimated to 31.5 GWh and the capacity factor is found to be
Capital cost of CSP [26] Ccsp 4000 $/kW 36% based on 8.6 hours of daily operation. The levelized cost
Capacity of CSP Pcsp 10MW of electricity generation by the proposed solar thermal power
plant (LCOE) is found to be 0.16 $/kWh.
Annual repair and maintenance
cost of CSP as a fraction 0.02
Different scenarios have been studied for the purchase price of
Discount rate d 0.1 electricity generated by the proposed plant and it is found that
Useful lifetime of CSP system Tcsp 30 years 5% increase on the LCOE makes the investment feasible.
Capacity factor of CSP system CFcsp 0.36
The annual electricity generation AEG 31536 MWh The economic benefits from emission reductions caused by
Capital Recovery Factor CRF 0.106 applying solar thermal power technology is not taken in the
Levelized Cost of Energy LCOE 0.16 $/KWh financial analysis of this study. Better LCOE will be obtained
in case of benefiting from emission reductions.
Three scenarios have been proposed for the purchase price of
the electricity generated by the proposed STPP. In each The parabolic trough solar thermal power technology is one of
scenario financial evaluation is performed. the best solutions to meet the energy shortage and achieve the
The first scenario proposed the purchase price the same as green energy goals for Palestine. This is approved by the
LCOE which is 0.16 $/kWh. The second scenario proposed economic analysis together with social benefits and stable
purchase price of 0.168 $/kWh (5% incentive). The third price of the supplied energy as well as the reduced impact on
scenario proposed purchase price of 0.178 $/kWh (10% the environment.
incentive).
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