Performance of a combined cooling heating and power system with mid-and-low temperature solar thermal energy and methanol decomposition integration

Abstract In this paper, a new distributed energy system that integrates the mid-and-low temperature solar energy thermochemical process and the methanol decomposition is proposed. Through the solar energy receiver/reactor, the energy collected by a parabolic trough concentrator, at 200–300 °C, is used to drive the decomposition reaction of the methanol into the synthesis gas, and thus the solar thermal energy is converted to the chemical energy. The chemical energy of the synthesis gas released in the combustion chamber of a micro gas turbine is used to drive the combined cooling heating and power systems. Energy analysis and exergy analysis of the system are implemented to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed system. Under the considerations of the changes of the solar irradiation intensity, the off-design performances of the micro turbine and the variations of the load, the design and off-design thermodynamic performances of the system and the characteristics of the chemical energy storage are numerically studied. Numerical results indicate that the primary energy ratio of the system is 76.40%, and the net solar-electricity conversion rate reaches 22.56%, which is higher than exiting large-scale solar thermal power plants. Owing to the introduction of a the solar thermochemical energy storage in the proposed system, the power generation efficiency is insensitive to the variations of the solar radiation, and thus an efficient and stable utilization approach of the solar thermal energy is achieved at all work condition.

[1]  Bertrand F. Tchanche,et al.  Fluid selection for a low-temperature solar organic Rankine cycle , 2009 .

[2]  Yong Shuai,et al.  Numerical analysis of hydrogen production via methane steam reforming in porous media solar thermochemical reactor using concentrated solar irradiation as heat source , 2014 .

[3]  Minlin Yang,et al.  Research, development and the prospect of combined cooling, heating, and power systems , 2010 .

[4]  Changying Zhao,et al.  A review of solar collectors and thermal energy storage in solar thermal applications , 2013 .

[5]  Hongguang Jin,et al.  Operational performance of the development of a 15kW parabolic trough mid-temperature solar receiver/reactor for hydrogen production , 2012 .

[6]  N. Lewis.  Toward Cost-Effective Solar Energy Use , 2007, Science.

[7]  Hongguang Jin,et al.  Experimental investigation of hydrogen production integrated methanol steam reforming with middle-temperature solar thermal energy , 2009 .

[8]  M. Romero,et al.  Hydrogen production by steam-gasification of petroleum coke using concentrated solar power—II Reactor design, testing, and modeling , 2006 .

[9]  Jiang Sun,et al.  SiC foam monolith catalyst for pressurized adiabatic methane reforming , 2013 .

[10]  Wojciech Lipiński,et al.  EFFICIENCY OF TWO-STEP SOLAR THERMOCHEMICAL NON-STOICHIOMETRIC REDOX CYCLES WITH HEAT RECOVERY , 2012 .

[11]  Soteris A. Kalogirou,et al.  Solar thermal collectors and applications , 2004 .

[12]  Hongguang Jin,et al.  Prototype of Middle-Temperature Solar Receiver/Reactor With Parabolic Trough Concentrator , 2007 .

[13]  M. Romero,et al.  Hydrogen production by steam-gasification of petroleum coke using concentrated solar power—I. Thermodynamic and kinetic analyses , 2005 .

[14]  Eckhard Lüpfert,et al.  Advances in Parabolic Trough Solar Power Technology , 2002 .

[15]  Eduardo Zarza,et al.  Parabolic-trough solar collectors and their applications , 2010 .

[16]  D. Mills.  Advances in solar thermal electricity technology , 2004 .

[17]  Noam Lior,et al.  Use of Low/Mid-Temperature Solar Heat for Thermochemical Upgrading of Energy, Part I: Application to a Novel Chemically-Recuperated Gas-Turbine Power Generation (SOLRGT) System , 2012 .

[18]  Hongguang Jin,et al.  Assessment of off-design performance of a small-scale combined cooling and power system using an alternative operating strategy for gas turbine , 2015 .

[19]  Lidia Roca,et al.  Heliostat-field gain-scheduling control applied to a two-step solar hydrogen production plant , 2013 .

[20]  Abdallah Khellaf,et al.  A review of studies on central receiver solar thermal power plants , 2013 .

[21]  Tatsuya Kodama,et al.  Ni/MgO–Al2O3 and Ni–Mg–O catalyzed SiC foam absorbers for high temperature solar reforming of methane , 2010 .

[22]  Hongguang Jin,et al.  Solar thermal power cycle with integration of methanol decomposition and middle-temperature solar thermal energy , 2005 .

[23]  E. A. Fletcher,et al.  Hydrogen- and Oxygen from Water , 1977, Science.

[24]  P. Charvin,et al.  Analysis of solar chemical processes for hydrogen production from water splitting thermochemical cycles , 2008 .

[25]  Aldo Steinfeld,et al.  Hydrogen production by hydrogen sulfide splitting using concentrated solar energy – Thermodynamics and economic evaluation , 2010 .

[26]  M. Romero,et al.  Concentrating solar thermal power and thermochemical fuels , 2012 .

[27]  T. Kodama.  High-temperature solar chemistry for converting solar heat to chemical fuels , 2003 .

[28]  Hongguang Jin,et al.  Modeling and optimizing parabolic trough solar collector systems using the least squares support vector machine method , 2012 .