Case study of solar chimney power plants in Northwestern regions of China

A solar chimney power plant, which is expected to provide electric power for remote villages in northwestern China, has been analyzed in this paper. Three counties in Ning Xia Hui Autonomous region, namely, Yinchuan, Pingluo, and Helan, where solar radiation is better than other regions of China, were selected as pilot locations to construct solar power plant. The solar power plant chimney, in which the height and diameter of the chimney are 200 m and 10 m, respectively, and the diameter of the solar collector cover is 500 m, is able to produce 110~190 kW electric power on a monthly average all year. Some parameters, such as chimney height, diameter of the solar collector, ambient temperature, solar irradiance and the efficiency of wind turbine, etc. which influence the performance of power generation, are also analyzed.