Integrated Solar Combined Cycles Using Gas Turbines with Partial Recuperation and Solar Integration at Different Pressure Levels

This work studies and compares two alternatives to improve the solar-to-electricity energy conversion efficiency in integrated solar combined cycle power plants (ISCC), which are based on the use of combined cycles including partial recuperative gas turbines. Each alternative has been integrated into dual and triple pressure levels with reheat heat recovery steam generators (HRSG). Partial recuperation conveys lower heat recovery at the steam generator than in conventional plants, because each MW exchanged in the recuperator is not available at the HRSG. This thermal power decrease at the HRSG may be overcome by the integration of solar energy that is implemented using parabolic trough collectors. Moreover, with such an implementation each solar thermal MW integrated allows a MW of heat recuperation and, thus a MW of fossil fuel saving, thus the solar heat-to-electricity energy conversion rate may reach values up to 50 %, which makes the proposal interesting.