Off-Design Dynamic Performance Analysis of a Solar Aided Coal-Fired Power Plant

Coal consumption and CO2 emissions are the major concerns of the 21st century. Solar aided (coal-fired) power generation (SAPG) is paid more and more attention globally, due to the lesser coal rate and initial cost than the original coal-fired power plant and CSP technology respectively. In this paper, the off-design dynamic performance simulation model of a solar aided coal-fired power plant is established. A 330 MW subcritical coal-fired power plant is taken as a case study. On a typical day, three various collector area solar fields are integrated into the coal-fired power plant. By introducing the solar heat, the variations of system performances are analyzed at design load, 75% load, and 50% load. Analyzed parameters with the change of DNI include the thermal oil mass flow rate, the mass flow rate of feed water heated by the solar energy, steam extraction mass flow rate, coal consumption, and the plant thermal efficiency. The research results show that, as DNI increases over a day, the coal saving rate will also increase, the maximum coal saving rate reaches up to 5%, and plant thermal efficiency reaches 40%. It is analyzed that the SAPG system gives the best performance at a lower load and a large aperture area.