Thermodynamic performance analysis of a solar-assisted distributed system driven by natural gas

Abstract Based on the principle of "temperature counterpart and energy cascade utilization" a solar-hybird distributed system driven by natural gas is designed. In this paper, the thermal performance and environmental performance of the system are calculated. The results show that the thermal efficiency of gas turbine is significantly increased with the increase of heat collector area, and when the collector area reaches 1949m2 the thermal efficiency of the gas turbine run up to 44.43% and the fuel consumption reduce by 43.5%. Meanwhile, the introduction of solar subsystem makes the system’s environmental performance greatly improved, and when the collector area reaches 1949m2, the CO2 emission reduction reaches 257.5kg/h. The simulation results show that the supplementary way of solar energy and natural gas is an effective method in distributed energy systems.