Development of a New Heliostat Field-Based Integrated Solar Energy System for Cogeneration

In the current study, we propose a novel hybrid system which consists of the solar heliostat field, gas turbine cycle and re-heat Rankine cycle and is capable of producing power and hot water simultaneously. A thermodynamic analysis of the current system is carried out to assess its performance both energetically and exergetically. A detailed parametric study is undertaken to study the effect of changing concentration ratio, ambient temperature, and time and day of the year on both energetic and exergetic efficiencies of the current system for Toronto, Canada. The best possible energy and exergy efficiencies for the receiver are 0.81 and 0.76 at a concentration ratio of 1600 and at 12:00 pm on the 180th day of the year. The receiver efficiency is observed to vary from 0.71 to 0.763 with a variation in ambient temperature from 260 to 320 K.