Applied Energy 97 (2012) 630641

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Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Simulation of the parabolic trough solar energy generation system

with Organic Rankine Cycle
Ya-Ling He , Dan-Hua Mei, Wen-Quan Tao, Wei-Wei Yang, Huai-Liang Liu
Key Laboratory of Thermo-Fluid Science and Engineering of MOE, School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xian Jiaotong University, Xian, Shaanxi 710049, China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 3 October 2011
Received in revised form 15 February 2012
Accepted 19 February 2012
Available online 26 April 2012
Keywords:
Solar thermal power generation
Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC)
Organic working uid

a b s t r a c t
A model for a typical parabolic trough solar thermal power generation system with Organic Rankine Cycle
(PT-SEGSORC) was built within the transient energy simulation package TRNSYS, which is formed by
integrating several submodels for the trough collector system, the single-tank thermal storage system,
the auxiliary power system and the heat-electricity conversion system. With this model, the effects of
several key parameters, including the interlayer pressure between the absorber tube and the glass tube
(pinter), the ow rate of high temperature oil in the absorber tube (v), solar radiation intensity (Idn) and
incidence angle (h), on the performance of the parabolic trough collector eld based on the meteorological data of Xian city were examined. The study shows that the heat loss of the solar collector (qloss)
increases sharply with the increase in pinter at beginning and then reaches to an approximately constant
value. The variation of heat collecting efciency (ghc) with v is quite similar to the variation of qloss with
pinter. However, Idn and h exhibit opposite effect on ghc. In addition, it is found that the optimal volume of
the thermal storage system is sensitively dependent on the solar radiation intensity. The optimal volumes
are 100, 150, 50, and 0 m3 for spring equinox, summer solstice, autumnal equinox and winter solstice,
respectively.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Among all the solar thermal power generation technologies,
the parabolic trough solar thermal power generation systems (PTSEGSs) have attracted great attentions and achieved commercial
applications. From 1985 to 1991, the US Luz company has built 9
PT-SEGS in the California Mojave Desert with the total installed
capacity reaching about 354 MW and the generation efciency
reaching about 15% [1,2]. And, a number of new plants are currently
in the planning process.
To date, great efforts had been devoted for further advancing
this technology for power generation [311]. Lippke [3] simulated
a typical 30 MW PT-SEGS. The results indicated that the solar radiation intensity greatly inuences the optimum temperatures of the
steam and heat transfer oil (HTO). Thomas [4], Kalogirous et al. [5]
and Zarza et al. [6] carried out investigations on the parabolic
trough collector systems for steam generation. Their studies demonstrated that the calculation error was within 1.2% and only 48.6%
of the solar radiation energy falling on the collector was utilized for
steam generation, others was dissipated to the environment in
different forms: collection losses (41.5%), thermal losses (6.9%),
energy losses due to raising the water temperature from environment temperature to 100 C (2.2%) and for the rig (0.5%). A direct
Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +86 29 82665930.
E-mail address: yalinghe@mail.xjtu.edu.cn (Y.-L. He).
0306-2619/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2012.02.047

steam generation PT-SEGS bench was also built by Almanza and

Lentz [7] using the recirculation process concept. In the bench, four
modules were connected in series and the rst three were adapted
with copper pipe absorbers covered with black chrome while the
last one used steel pipe covered with black chrome. The results
indicated that the copper pipes could eliminate the bend due to
thermal stress and the measured system efciency of this system
reached about 3%. In addition, the basic energy and exergy analysis
on the PT-SEGS was also performed by Singh et al. to evaluate the
respective losses as well as exergetic efciency of the whole system [8]. The study indicated that within the system, most of the
heat loss occurred in the condenser of the heat engine part while
most of the exergy loss is located in the PT collectorreceiver
assembly. Besides, several approaches have been proposed for
further improving the efciency of PT-SEGS, among which the
PT-SEGS with Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) gets more and more
attentions. A 150-kWe trough-ORC solar power plant was demonstrated in the Coolidge Solar Irrigation Project [9]. Although the
plant operated successfully for several years, it suffered from many
problems like low collector performance, high operation and maintenance costs and low annual output, hindering its wide applications. Since then, the performance of PT-SEGSORC has been
being investigated by many researchers. Price and Hassani [10]
built the system models of PT-SEGSORC with Aspen Plus, in which
Pentane and a combination of mixed working uids were used as
the working uid and three ORC cycles were analyzed including

Y.-L. He et al. / Applied Energy 97 (2012) 630641

631

Nomenclature
a
A
b
c
cp
cp
d
DE
f
h

Dh
HTO
i, j
I
K
l
m
_
m
MEP
OWF
p
Pe
PT
q,Q
R
Re
S
SEGS
T
T
DT
dT
U
v; V
W
Z

control function
area, m2
control function or modied coefcient
control function
constant pressure specic heat capacity, kJ kg1 K1
average constant pressure specic heat capacity,
kJ kg1 K1
diameter, m
thermodynamic energy change, W
frictional resistance coefcient
enthalpy, kJ kg1, or convection heat transfer coefcient, W m2 K1, pressure loss coefcient
enthalpy rise, kJ kg1
heat transfer oil
serial number
solar radiation intensity, W m2
solar incidence angle modier
length of nite unit, m
mass, kg
mass ow rate, kg s1
gas mean molecular free path
organic working uid
condensation pressure, Pa
electric energy production, kJ
parabolic trough
thermal energy, W
thermal resistance, m KW1
Reynolds number
numbers
solar energy generation system
temperature, C
average temperature, C
temperature rise, C
temperature difference, C
overall heat transfer coefcient, W m2 K1
volume, m3; HTO ow rate, ms1
work, kJ
heat recovery series

Greek symbols
a
absorptivity or extraction coefcient
D
surface roughness of the absorber tube, m
r
StefanBoltzmann constant; molecular diameter, m
e
emissivity or performance coefcient
g
efciency
h
incidence angle of beam radiation

a simple Rankine cycle, a Rankine cycle with recuperation and a

simple Rankine cycle with reheat and recuperation. The results
indicated that the efciency were 12.5%, 20.1%, 20.4%, 20.6% and
20.7%, respectively, for basic ORC using pure working uid, ORC
with recuperation using pure working uid, ORC with using mixed
working uid, ORC with recuperation and reheat using pure working uid and ORC with recuperation and reheat using mixed working uid. Prabhu [11] conducted simulation investigations on PTSEGSORC, and compared the difference between the Organic Rankine Cycle and steam Rankine cycle. The results indicated that the
steam cycle outperformed the ORC by 1525% at the average summer high temperature conditions even though the ORC systems
were carefully designed and the working uids were carefully selected. Pei et al. [12] developed a PT-SEGSORC with heat regeneration, in which the CPC collectors were made up of compound
parabolic concentrator and the organic working uid (OWF) was

q
s
U

conductivity, W m1 K1

reectivity
transmissivity, or enthalpy, kJ kg1
energy, kJ

Subscripts
a
absorber tube
aux
auxiliary energy subsystem
c
collecting
con
condenser
dn
direct solar radiation
en
environment
ev
evaporation
ext
extraction
f
heat transfer oil (HTO)
fe
feed
g
glass tube
ge
generator
h
high temperature
hc
heat collecting
he
heat exchange
i,i
inner, serial number
in
inlet
inter
interlayer
j
serial number
lr,LR
last stage surface-type regenerator
loss
heat loss
L
low temperature or liquid
o
outer or OHT
op
optical
out
outlet
p
pump
pr
pooled regenerative heater
pt
parabolic trough collector
r
radiation
s
single tank
sat
saturation
set
control set point
sh
superheating
sky
outer space
sys
system
t
total
turb
steam turbine
V
vapor
w, w
water, work

HCFC-123. The study indicated that the regenerative cycle has negative effects on the collector efciency due to increment of the
average working temperature of the rst-stage collectors while positive ones on the ORC efciency and the system electricity efciency with regenerative ORC is about 8.6% when the solar
radiation is 750 W m2.
Our literature review indicated that most of the models for simulating trough collector eld in the PT-SEGS are empirical models;
the accuracy of those models is limited. Also, the systems considered in those models are relatively simple. In this work, a detailed
procedure for modeling the PT-SEGSORC through the energy simulation package TRNSYS [13] is presented, in which the onedimensional model [14] is adopted to simulate the trough collector
eld to improve the modeling accuracy. The effect of heat recovery
system on the system efciency is also considered in the model
by introducing the last stage surface-type regenerator. With the

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Y.-L. He et al. / Applied Energy 97 (2012) 630641

model, the inuences of several design and operation parameters

on the performance of both the collector eld and the whole system are examined.
2. System description and working principle
A schematic diagram of the parabolic trough solar thermal
power generation systems is shown in Fig. 1, which consists of
the trough collector eld, thermal storage system, auxiliary energy
system, heat exchange system, heat recovery system, cooling system and power system, etc. The trough collector eld includes several lines of the trough collectors, and each collector comprises of a
receiver and a concentrator. With respect to the receiver, it is made
of a stainless steel tube covered by a glass envelope for reducing
heat loss due to radiation and convection, which is placed along
the focal line of the concentrator. As the heat transfer oil ows
through the receiver, it is heated up to a higher temperature. During the operation, a single thermal storage tank is employed to
store the excessive thermal energy when the solar intensity is higher than that needed in the heat exchange system, whereas the auxiliary energy system will operate when the solar radiation intensity
is inadequate to drive the subsequent procedures and/or the stored
thermal energy is exhausted. As for the heat exchanger, it consists
of a preheater, an evaporator and an overheater, through which the
organic working uid (OWF) is turned into steam by the high temperature HTO from the trough collector, thermal storage system or
the auxiliary energy system. The OWF steam is then used as the
working uid for driving the steam turbine.
3. Mathematical model
3.1. Model formulations for each subsystem
In this section, formulations for mathematical model of each
subsystem are given. Also, the validation of the model of trough
collector eld with the available experimental results is carried
on to make sure the correctness and reliability of the simulation
of PT-SEGSORC. For the other subsystems, as they are more advanced ones, no relative test data are available in the open literatures, hence their validations are not conducted for the time being.
3.1.1. Trough collector eld
3.1.1.1. Model formulations. Fig. 2 illustrates the sketch of the crosssection of the collector tube in the trough collectors. During the

Fig. 2. Cross-section view of the collector tube.

operation, the heat reected by the parabolic trough is mainly absorbed by the HTO in the absorber tube and the rest dissipates to
the ambient air. The amount of the solar radiation concentrated
on the absorber tube (Qa) is decided by the geometric and optical
parameters of the parabolic trough collector, which represents
the superposition of the thermal energy absorbed by HTO (Qf)
and the heat loss of the collector (Qloss). Mathematically, it can
be written as:

Q a gop  K  Idn  Apt

Q a Q f Q loss

where Apt is the orice area of the parabolic trough collector and Idn
is the direct solar radiation intensity. The terms gop and K are the
optical efciency of collector and solar incidence angle modier,
which are, respectively, given by [3]:

gop qpt sg aa

K cosh  0:003512h  0:00003137h2

with qpt, sg, aa and h, respectively, denoting the reectivity of parabolic trough, the transmissivity of the glass tube, the absorptivity
of the absorber tube and the incidence angle of beam radiation.
A one-dimensional steady-state model [14] is employed herein
to simulate the trough collector. In the model, the trough collector
is divided into a certain number of nite units along the owing

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of parabolic trough SEGS system with Organic Rankine Cycle.

Y.-L. He et al. / Applied Energy 97 (2012) 630641

direction of the working uid. To indicate the heat transport process in the trough collector, the thermal resistance network for
each nite unit is presented in Fig. 3. Clearly, the heat energy absorbed by HTO (Qf) is determined by the thermal resistance (R1)
due to the convective heat transfer between HTO and absorber
tube surface and the thermal resistance (R2) due to the heat conduction through the tube walls. Mathematically, it can be given by:

Qf

plT a;o  T f

R1 R2

where l is the length of nite unit.

Besides, R3, R4 represent the thermal resistance due convective,
radiation heat transfer between absorber tube outer wall and glass
tube inner wall. R5 stands for the thermal resistance due to heat
conduction between the glass tube inner and outer wall. And R6,
R7 means the thermal resistance due to convective, radiation heat
transfer between glass tube outer wall and the out environment.
With respect to the heat loss (Qloss), it is actually equal to the
heat transfer rate between the outer wall of the absorber tube
and the inner wall of the glass tube (Qa-g), and the heat transfer rate
between the outer wall of the glass tube and the environment (Qasky). Mathematically, it gives:

Q loss Q ag Q gsky

In Eq. (6), Qa-g is the summation of the convective heat transfer rate
[15] and the radiative heat transfer rate between the glass tube and
the absorber tube, which can be given by:

Q ag Q ag;c Q ag;r

Q ag;c

2phag;c
T a;o  T g;i 
lndg;i =da;o

Q ag;r 2pea rlda;o T 4a;o  T 4g;i 

where dg,i is the inner diameter of the glass tube, da,o is the outer
diameter of the absorber tube, ea is the emissivity of the absorber
tube outer wall, and ha-g,c is the convection heat transfer coefcient
in the interlayer, given by Eq. (10) [15]:

hag;c

kag
da;o
2

g;i
ln da;o
b  MEP

dg;i
da;o


1

10

with ka-g representing gas conductivity in the interlayer. b and MEP

are the modied coefcient and gas mean molecular free path,
which are, respectively given by:

9c  5
2c 1

MFP

11

1:748  1020 T
pr2

12

where c, r, p, T are the specic heat capacity ratio, the molecular

diameter, the pressure, and the average temperature of the gas in
the interlayer given by T T a;o T g;i =2 .
As for the heat transfer rate between the outer wall of the glass
tube and the environment (Qa-sky), it is the summation of convection and radiation heat transfer rate between the glass tube and
the environment, which is given by:
R3

R6
Ten

Tf

R1

Ta,i

R2

R5
Ta,o

Tg,i
R4

633

Q gsky Q gsky;c Q gsky;r

13

Q gsky;c 2pldg;o hg;c T g;o  T en 

14

h
i
Q gsky;r 2pldg;o eg r T 4g;o  T 4sky

15

where dg,o is the outer diameter of the glass tube, hg,c is the convection heat transfer coefcient outside the glass tube, eg is the emissivity of the glass tube outer wall, r is the StefanBoltzmann
constant and Tsky is the effective sky temperature.
With respect to the pressure drop (i.e., the frictional head loss)
of HTO in the absorber tube, it is related to the HTO ow rate (v),
the inner diameter (da,i) and the surface roughness of the absorber
tube (D) [16]. The equivalent pressure loss coefcient can be expressed by:

hf

l m2
da;i 2g

16

where f is the frictional resistance coefcient, given by:

p
p
1= f 2:0 logD=da;i =3:7 2:51=Ref f

17

with Ref denoting the Reynolds number of HTO in the tube.

Based on above equations, the general heat transfer and pressure loss in the trough collector can be calculated according to
the processes presented in Fig. 4.
3.1.1.2. Model Validation. In order to validate the theoretical model
of the one-dimensional steady-state model for the trough collector,
simulations is carried out in LS-2 collector under the operation
condition shown in Table 1. The simulation results are compared
with the experimental results presented in Ref. [17], as indicated
in Fig. 5. It can be seen that the simulation collector efciencies
are accordant with the experimental values [17]. The good agreement shows that the theoretical model for trough collector in the
present paper is correct and reliable.
3.1.2. Single-tank thermal storage subsystem
As mentioned earlier, a single tank is used to storage the heat
energy in the system, and the heat transfer oil (HTO) is adopted
as the heat storage medium. Simply, the thermocline model [18],
which is an existing model in TRNSYS [13], is employed to simulate
the heat transfer process inside the thermal storage system. In the
model, the tank is divided into n units with equal volume from the
_ f;h are, respectop to the bottom as illustrated in Fig. 6. Tf,h and m
tively, the temperature and mass ow rate of HTO from collector
_ f;L are those
eld to the thermal storage system, while Tf,L and m
from heat exchange system to the thermal storage system, respectively. To further simplify the model, assumptions are also made as
listed below:
(1) Uniform temperature distribution of HTO in each unit.
(2) Ignoring the heat conduction between adjacent units.
(3) Neglecting the ow rate of HTO due to the large volume of
the tank.
Generally, the conservation of heat energy in the ith unit can be
expressed as:

mf;i cpf;i

dT f;i
_ f;h cpf;i T f;h  T f;i bi m
_ f;L cpf;i T f;L  T f;i
ai m
dt

ci T i1  T i cpf;i ci > 0
U sen As;i T f;i  T en
ci T i  T i1 cpf;i ci < 0
18

Tg,o
R7
Tsky

Fig. 3. Thermal resistance network of trough collector.

where Tf,i, mf,i and cpf,i are the temperature, the mass and the constant pressure specic heat of HTO in the ith unit, respectively.
As,i is the surface area of the ith element, Ten is the environment

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Y.-L. He et al. / Applied Energy 97 (2012) 630641

Fig. 4. The calculation process for the trough collector.

Table 1
Working parameters for trough collector validation.
Parameter

Value

Unit

Parameter

Value

Unit

Direct solar radiation intensity

Optical efciency of collector
Environment temperature
Environment wind speed

940
0.731
22
0

W m2

C
m s1

Incidence angle
HTO ow rate in collector eld
Effective sky temperature
HTO temperature

11.6
0.5
14
100350

m s1
C
C

73
Experimental Results
Simulation Results

72
71

hc

70
69
68
67
66

100

150

200

250

300

350

Tf ( )
Fig. 5. Validation for model of the trough collector.

temperature, and Us-en is the overall heat transfer coefcient between the storage tank and the environment. The constants ai, bi
and ci are the control functions, which are, respectively, given by:

ai

1; i Sh
0; iSh

19

Fig. 6. Diagram of the single-tank thermocline thermal storage subsystem.

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Y.-L. He et al. / Applied Energy 97 (2012) 630641

bi

1; i SL

j1
X

_ f;h
ci m

T/

20

0; iSL
_ f;L
aj  m

n
X

bj

T2

with Sh and SL denoting the numbers of control volume in the thermal storage system, into which the HTO ows from collector eld
and the heat exchange system, respectively.
Totally, the heat loss in the thermal storage tank (Qloss,s), the
heat transferred by HTO from the trough collector eld to the thermal storage tank (Qpt-s), the heat transferred by HTO from the thermal storage tank to the heat exchange system (Qs-he), and the
thermodynamic energy change in the tank (DE) can be, respectively, determined by:

Q loss;s

n
X

21

ji1

j1

T4

Temperature change
process for HTO
T3

U sen As;i T f;i  T en

Tsh

T1
Tev

Temperature change
process for OWF

Tfe
preheating
process

evaporating overheating
process
process

Fig. 7. Illustration of heat transfer process.

22

i1

Pn

i1 c pf;i

_ f;h
Q pts m

T f;h  T f;n

_ o;he cpo ;he T ev  T gs ghe m

_ f;he cpf;he T 2  T 1
Q 12 m

28

_ o;he hlatent ghe m

_ f;he cpf;he T 3  T 2
Q 23 m

29

24

_ o;he cpo;he ; m
_ f;he cpf;he T 4  T ev
Q 34 ehe minm

30

25

_ f;he and cpf,he are the mass ow rate and the specic heat
where m
_ O;he and cpo,he are those of the OWF. hlacapacity of the HTO, while m
tent is the latent heat of OWF. ghe and ehe are the heat exchange efciency and performance coefcient of the heat exchange system.

23

Pn

i1 c pf;i

_ f;L
Q she m

DE

n
X

T f;1  T f;L
 Pn

Pn
mf;i 

i1

i1 c pf;i

i1 T i

Pn

i1 T i jt0

3.1.3. Auxiliary energy subsystem

To maintain the continuous and stable operation of the whole
power system, the auxiliary energy system has to be operated
when the solar radiation is inadequate and the heat energy in
the thermal storage system is exhausted.
In the auxiliary energy system, Tset is the auxiliary energy control temperature. By comparing the temperature of HTO that ows
into the auxiliary energy subsystem (Tf,aux) and Tset, it can be
decided whether the auxiliary energy subsystem should be on or
not. When Tf,aux < Tset, the auxiliary energy subsystem is on and
the heat provided by the auxiliary energy system (Q aux ) and heat
loss in the auxiliary energy system (Q loss;aux ) are, respectively,
determined by:

_ f;aux cpf;aux T set T f;aux U auxen Aaux T f;aux T en

m

gaux

Q aux

0
(

Q loss;aux

T f;aux < T set

26

; T f;aux  T set

U auxen Aaux T f;aux  T en 1  gaux Q_ aux ;

T f;aux < T set

; T f;aux  T set

3.1.4.2. Heat recovery system.

3.1.4.2.1. The last stage surface-type regenerator. The ow and heat
transfer process in the last stage surface-type regenerator is illustrated in Fig. 8. The temperature of the overheated OWF at the outlet of the steam turbine is Tturb,out, and it decreases to To,lr after the
heat releasing process in the regenerator, then the cooled OWF
condenses to liquid in the condenser. The temperature of supercooled liquid OWF at the outlet of the condenser is Tcon,out, and it
increases to To,LR after absorbing the heat in the regenerator. Simply, the heat transfer rate in the last stage surface-type regenerator
(Qlr) can be calculated by:

_ o;lr cpV;lr ; cpL:lr min T turb;out  T con;out

Q lr elr m

_ o;lr is the OWF mass ow rate, elr is the regenerator perforwhere m

mance coefcient. cpV,lr and cpL,lr are the specic heat capacities of
the vapor and liquid OWF, respectively.
And, To,LR and To,lr are, respectively, given by:

T o;LR

Q lr
T con;out
_ o;lr cpL;lr
m

27
_ f;aux , T f;aux and cpf,aux are the mass ow rate, the average
where m
temperature and the constant pressure specic heat of HTO in the
auxiliary energy system, respectively. Uaux-en is the overall heat
transfer coefcient between the auxiliary energy subsystem and
the environment. Aaux and gaux are the surface area and the efciency of the auxiliary energy subsystem, respectively.
3.1.4. Heat-electricity conversion subsystem
3.1.4.1. Heat exchange system. Fig. 7 illustrates the heat transport
processes in the heat exchange system. In the gure, Process 12,
process 23 and process 34 are, respectively, the preheating process, evaporating process and overheating process. And, T4T3T2
T1 and TfeTevTsh are the temperature change process for HTO and
OWF, respectively. The thermal energy absorbed by the OWF in
these three processes can be determined by:

31

T o;lr T turb;out 

32

Q lr

33

glr m_ o cpV;lr

where glr is the regenerator efciency.

Tcon,out

To,lr

To,LR

Tturb,out

Fig. 8. Fluid ow in the last stage surface-type heat regenerator.

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Y.-L. He et al. / Applied Energy 97 (2012) 630641

3.1.4.2.2. Pooled regenerative heater. The uid ow in the pooled

regenerative heater is shown in Fig. 9. In the gure, hj is the extraction enthalpy in the jth steam turbine, aj is the jth extraction coefcient and sj is the jth feeding uid enthalpy at the outlet of the
regenerative heater. The enthalpy conservation in the pooled
regenerative heater can be written as:

"

z
X

gpr aj hj 1 

ai sj1 1 

ij

z
X

3.2. Performance analysis

ai sj

34

ij1

where gpr is the efciency of the heater.

3.1.4.3. Power system. The power system contains a steam turbine
with pentane being the OWF and a generator. In the system, the
work done by the ORC (Wturb), the efciency of the steam turbine
(gturb) and the electric energy production (Pege) are, respectively,
given by:

"
_ o;turb
W turb m

z
X


ai hturb;in  hi 1 

i1

z
X

ai

hturb;in  hturb;out

i1

35
W

turb
gturb _
mo;turb hturb;out  ho;fe

Pege

36

gge W turb

37

3600

where hturb,in and hturb,out are, respectively, the specic enthalpies of

OWF at the inlet and outlet of the steam turbine, ho,fe is the specic
enthalpy of the feeding OWF and gge is the efciency of the
generator.
3.1.4.4. Cooling system. The overheated OWF from the last stage
surface-type regenerator condenses into the saturated uid in
the condenser. The saturation temperature (Tsat) corresponding
to a certain pressure in the condenser (pcon) is decided by the
condenser temperature difference. Simply, the saturation temperature (Tsat), the temperature rise of cooling water (DTw,con) and
the condenser temperature difference (dTcon), are, respectively,
given by:

T sat T w;con DT w;con dT con

38

_ o;con qo;con
m
_ w;con cpw
m

39

DT w;con



hcon Acon
dT con T sat  T w;con exp 
_ w;con cpw
m

i =j -1

3.2.1. Simulation methods

In this work, the energy simulation package TRNSYS [13] is
adopted. TRNSYS is a transient systems simulation program package with modular structures, in which the user can specify the
components that constitute the unevaluated system and the manner in which they are connected. As the modular package of the
single-tank thermal storage subsystem already exists in TRNSYS,
the modular packages of the submodels for the remaining subsystem presented above are established and added to the DLL les in
the TRNSYS database and the PT-SEGSORC is then constructed by
calling the DLL les.
With the selected basic parameters, the performance of the
trough collector eld and the whole system is evaluated based
on the meteorological data of city Xian on the specic day of
spring equinox, summer solstice, autumnal equinox and winter
solstice, respectively.
3.2.2. Basic parameters
3.2.2.1. Selection of organic uids and cycle parameters. In this work,
R113, R123 and pentane are used as the OWF. Table 2 shows their
thermodynamic parameters. Due to the high critical temperature
and low ODP and GWP, three OWF are all suitable for high temperature ORC.
Fig. 10 shows the ORC efciencies (go) and the unit mass OWF
output powers (wo) for three different working uids (i.e., R113,
R123 and Pentane) at different evaporation pressures (pev). As indicated in the gure, for the same turbine inlet temperature (Tturb,i),
wo of pentane is far greater than those of R112 and R123. Also, it is
seen that when Tturb,i is less than 185 C, go of R123 is the highest,
which is followed by that of pentane and R113. However, it is
shown that when Tturb,i is greater than 185 C, go and wo of pentane
are both the greatest. As a result, pentane is selected as the organic
working uid in the following studies. And, the rated operating
conditions of pev and Tturb,i are, respectively, set to be 2.0 MPa
and 190 C.
3.2.2.2. Optimal feeding uid temperature for ORC system. The feeding uid temperature (Tfe) of the heat recovery system depends
on the rst stage heat recovery extraction pressure (pext). Fig. 11
shows the effect of the rst stage heat recovery pressure (pext) on
go under different heat recovery series (Z). Clearly, with the increase in Z, go increases gradually. For each Z, there exists an optimal pext. As indicated in the gure, the optimal rst stage heat
recovery pressures are, respectively, 0.9, 1.2, 1.4 and 1.6 MPa when
Z is 1, 2, 3 and 4.

hj
3.2.2.3. Suitable number of heat recovery series. Fig. 12 shows the effect of Z on go. It is seen that go increases sharply with Z at the
beginning and then reaches to an approximately constant value.
However, it is noticed that too high Z results in the large cost of
the generation system and serious security risks. In this work,
three stages heat recovery system is proposed.

40

j -1

_ o;con and m
_ w;con are, respectively, the mass ow rates of
where m
OWF into the condenser and the cooling water, qo,con is the condensation heat release of the OWF in the condenser, cpw is the specic
heat capacity of cooling water, hcon is the condensation heat transfer
coefcient and Acon is the heat exchange area of condenser.

1 i
i =j

Fig. 9. Fluid ow in the pooled regenerative heater.

3.2.2.4. Site description and solar radiation parameter. In China,

abundant solar energy resources are available, and its territory
can be divided into ve regions according to amount of the accepted global solar radiation [19]. Among the rst-three regions,
the annual sunshine duration is more than 2000 h and the annual

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Y.-L. He et al. / Applied Energy 97 (2012) 630641

Table 2
Thermodynamic performance parameters of organic working uid.
Working uid

Mole Mass (g mol1)

Critical pressure (MPa)

Critical temperature (C)

ODP

GWP

R113
R123
Pentane

187.38
152.93
72.15

3.39
3.66
3.37

214.05
183.67
196.54

0.9
0.02
0

1.55
29
11

120
25.6
100

21.5
80

24.8

60

140

150

160

170

180

190

200

Z=1
Z=2
Z=3
Z=4

24.4

20.5
20.0
130

25.2

-1

R113 Output Power

R123 Output Power
Pentane Output Power

21.0

wo /kJkg

/%

22.0

/%

22.5

26.0

R113 Efficiency
R123 Efficiency
Pentane Efficiency

23.0

40
210

24.0

0.4

0.6

0.8

Tturb,i /

1.0

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.0

pext /MPa

(a) pev = 1.5 MPa

Fig. 11. Effect of rst stage heat recovery steam extraction pressure ORC system
efciency.

24.0
120
100

80
23.0
60

26.0

wo /kJkg

/%

23.5

25.5

22.0
150

/%

-1

40
R113 Efficiency
R123 Efficiency
Pentane Efficiency

160

170

180

R113 Output Power

R123 Output Power
Pentane Output Power 20

190

200

25.0

22.5

24.5

210

24.0

Tturb,i /

(b) pev = 2.0 MPa

23.5

120

Fig. 12. Effect of heat recovery series on ORC system efciency.

100

R113 Efficiency
R123 Efficiency
Pentane Efficiency

80

-1

23.5

wo /kJkg

/%

24.0

60

23.0
160

24.5

R113 Output Power

R123 Output Power
Pentane Output Power

170

180

190

200

40
210

Tturb,i /

(c) pev = 2.5 MPa

Fig. 10. Effect of turbine inlet temperature on ORC system efciency and unit mass
output power.

where annual global solar radiation is about 50005850 MJ/m2,

approximately equivalent to the amount of daily radiation at
3.84.5 kW h/m2. The direct solar radiation intensity on the specic day of spring equinox, summer solstice, autumnal equinox
and winter solstice, shown in Fig. 13, is used as the basic input
parameters for system simulation.
3.2.3. System performance
In this section, the effects of the designing parameters on the
performance of PT-SEGSORC are examined. Generally, the power
generation efciency and the power output are employed to indicate the performance of the PT-SEGSORC. The total system power
generation efciency (gsys) can be given by:

3600 

global solar radiation amount is larger than 5000 MJ/m2, which

makes them very favorable regions for solar energy utilization. In
the present work, Xian (latitude: 34.267N, longitude: 108.9E)
of Shaanxi Province is selected as the site where the PT-SEGS
ORC is built in the simulation work. It is in the above third region,

gsys P24

P24

i1 Q c i

i1 Pege i
P24
i1 Q aux i

41

where Qc(i), Qaux(i) and Pege(i) are the thermal energy collected by
the eld, the energy consumption by the auxiliary systems and
the system output power, respectively.

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Y.-L. He et al. / Applied Energy 97 (2012) 630641

3000

120
Spring equinox
Summer solstice
Autumnal equinox
Winter solstice

100

Tf=100
Tf=150
Tf=200

Idn/kJh

qloss,t /Wm

-1

-1

2000

1000

80

Tf=250

60
40
20

12

16

20

0
0.01

24

0.1

10

100

1000

10000

1000

10000

pinter /Pa

Time/h

(a) qloss,t

Fig. 13. Direct solar radiation on four typical days.

70

4. Results and discussion

60

The performances of the parabolic trough collector eld and the

whole system are evaluated under the basic operation conditions
listed in Table 3. Details are as follows.

qloss,c /Wm

-1

50

4.1. Performance of solar collector eld

40

Tf=100
Tf=150
Tf=200
Tf=250

30
20

In this section, the effects of the interlayer pressure between absorber tube and glass tube (pinter), HTO ow rate in the absorber
tube (v), solar radiation intensity (Idn) and the incidence angle (h)
on the performance of the collector eld are examined.
4.1.1. Interlayer pressure between absorber tube and glass tube (pinter)
As radiation heat loss (qloss,r) is the same at the same Tf, the difference of total heat loss (qloss,t) is thus mainly decided by the convection heat loss (qloss,c). Fig. 14 presents the effect of pinter on the
unit length heat loss of the solar collector (qloss,t) at different HTO
temperatures (Tf). As indicated in the gure, qloss,t and qloss,c exhibit
similar variation trends with pinter. With the increase in Tf, both
qloss,t and qloss,c increase. When pinter is smaller than 10 Pa, the variations of qloss,t and qloss,c are sharp. When pinter is higher than 10 Pa,
however, both qloss,t and qloss,c are almost independent on pinter.
This may be due to the fact that when the interlayer is highly rareed the major thermal resistance of the overall heat transfer of
the glass tube to the environment is in the interlayer conduction,
and qloss,c is mainly dependent on the random collision between
gas molecules in the interlayer. When pinter is smaller than 10 Pa,
increase of pressure in the interlayer will lead to rapid decrease
of the molecular mean free path and intense collisions between
the molecules, resulting in the rapid increase of qloss,c; when pinter
is higher than 10 Pa, the thermal resistance of the interlayer become trivial, hence the effect of further increase in pinter becomes
much more mild.

10
0
0.01

0.1

10

100

pinter /Pa

(b) qloss,c
Fig. 14. Effect of interlayer pressure on unit length heat loss.

4.1.2. HTO ow rate in the absorber tube (v)

The effect of Tf on the heat collecting efciency (ghc) at different
HTO ow rates (v) is presented in Fig. 15. Clearly, as shown in the
gure, ghc decreases sharply with the increase in Tf at a given v.
This is because with the increase in the oil temperature Tf the radiation heat transfer between the outer surface of the absorber tube
and the inner surface of the glass tube deceases, leading to a reduction of the absorbed solar energy. The variation of ghc with v at a
constant Tf of 250 C is also shown in Fig. 16. It is seen that with
the increase in v, ghc increases gradually. Interestingly, it is found
that further increasing v exhibits little effect on ghc when v reaches
a certain value. This is due to the reason that when v is low, the
thermal resistance of the oil convective heat transfer is an important part of the overall thermal resistance from glass inner surface
to oil. Increasing v can signicantly enhance convection heat transfer inside the absorber tube, hence increases the absorbed solar

Table 3
Basic working parameters.
Parameter

Value

Unit

Parameter

Value

Unit

Length of trough collector

Focal length of parabolic trough
Width of trough collector
Initial temperature of HTF in the heat exchange system
Efciency of the heat exchange system
Initial temperature at the entrance of steam turbine
Initial pressure at the entrance of steam turbine
Line of trough collector
Number of collector each line
Outer diameter of absorber

47.1
1.49
5.0
200
95
190
2.0
5
3
0.070

m
m
m
C
%
C
MPa

Inner diameter of absorber

Outer diameter of glass tube
Inner diameter of glass tube
Relative internal efciency of steam turbine
Efciency of the last stage surface-type regenerator
Performance of the last stage surface-type regenerator
Mass ow rate of cooling water
Temperature of cooling water
Water pump efciency
Regenerative heater efciency

0.065
0.105
0.095
70
95
0.6
1.0  104
20
67
99

m
m
m
%
%

kg h1
C
%
%

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Y.-L. He et al. / Applied Energy 97 (2012) 630641

absorber tube outer wall, thus more heat loss will be caused. However, heat absorbed by the HTO is much higher than heat loss under higher Idn, therefore, resulting in the increase of ghc with Idn.
Besides, the effect of h on ghc at different temperatures of HTO
(Tf) is also presented in Fig. 18. As can be seen from the gure,
ghc decreases sharply with the increase of h at a given Tf. This highlights the importance of improving the tracking accuracy of the
collector such that the efciency of the collector can be boosted.

73

71

hc

/%

72

70

v =0.5m/s
v =1.0m/s
v =2.0m/s

4.2. Performance of the whole system

69
68
100

150

200

250

300

Tf /
Fig. 15. Heat collecting efciency on different HTO ow rate.

71.2

hc

/%

71.0

70.8

70.6

70.4
0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

-1

v/ms

Fig. 16. Effect of HTO ow rate on heat collecting efciency.

energy and consequently reduces the heat loss. However, when the
v reaches a certain value, oil convective thermal resistance becomes not important, hence further increasing v exhibits little effect on the efciency.
4.1.3. Solar radiation intensity (Idn) and incidence angle (h)
Fig. 17 shows the effect of different temperatures of HTO (Tf) on
the heat collecting efciency (ghc) at different solar radiation intensities (Idn). Clearly, as indicated in the gure, ghc signicantly decreases with Tf at a given Idn, and its variation is much severer at
lower Idn. Also, ghc gradually increases with Idn at a given Tf and
the increasing trend becomes less under higher Tf. This is mainly
due to the fact that higher Idn leads to higher temperature on the

In this part, the inuences of the mass ow rate of HTO in the

_ o ), thermal storage capacity and cooling water
collector eld (m
parameters on the performance of the whole system are explored.
_ o)
4.2.1. Mass ow rate of HTO in the collector eld (m
_ o on the collected thermal enFig. 19 shows the inuence of m
ergy (Qc), the work transferred from the thermal energy (WQ)
and the pump work due to pressure loss (Wp) in the collector eld
at different seasons. As shown in the gure, Qc sharply increases
_ o at beginning. Then, the increase of Qc with m
_ o becomes
with m
_ o is
weak. In addition, it is seen that the variation of WQ with m
quite similar to that of Qc. However, the variation of Wp is quite dif_ o and the variation of Wp is much
ferent, it greatly increases with m
_ o.
severer at higher m
Also, it is found that the difference between WQ and Wp, i.e.,
_ o of 2.0  104,
maximal useful work, can be achieved at m
4
4
4
2.0  10 , 1.4  10 and 1.4  10 kg/h for spring equinox, summer
solstice, autumnal equinox and winter solstice, respectively. The
difference in the optimal mass ow rate of HTO is due to the fact
that the different solar radiation intensities bring about different
optimum mass ows on these typical days, and the larger the solar
radiation intensity is, the more signicant effect of mass ow rate
on collector efciency will be.
4.2.2. Thermal storage capacity
The performance of the auxiliary energy system with different
thermal storage capacities is analyzed. Four thermal storage systems with different volumes (V) of 0 m3, 50 m3, 100 m3 and
150 m3 are studied. Fig. 20 shows the time-dependent consumptions of the auxiliary energy (Uaux) at different V for spring equinox, summer solstice, autumnal equinox and winter solstice.
Clearly, it can be seen from Fig. 20a and c that Uaux is closely
dependent on V at the time slot between 16:00 to 20:00 at spring
equinox and autumnal equinox. In that period, Uaux is greatly decreased when V is increased from 0 m3 to 50 m3, whereas it
changes little with further increasing V from 50 m3 to 150 m3. As
a result, a volume of 50 m3 is recommended for the thermal

72

80
70
60

/%

70

69

hc

hc

/%

71

67
100

Tf=100

40

Idn=800W/m

68

50

Idn=400W/m

Tf=200

Idn=1200W/m

30

150

200

250

20

Tf=300

10

20

30

40

50

60

Tf /
Fig. 17. Heat collecting efciency at different solar radiation intensity.

Fig. 18. Effect of incidence angle on heat collecting efciency.

640

Y.-L. He et al. / Applied Energy 97 (2012) 630641

5

1.2x10

Qu

Wp

-1

6.0x10

Q /kJh

1.2x10
8.0x10

W /kW

WQ

W /kW

8.0x10

Wp

1.6x10

WQ

1.0x10
-1

10

Qu

Q /kJh

2.0x10

1.4x10

4.0x10

4.0x10

2.0x10

0
0.0
4
4
4
4
4
4
1.6x10 1.8x10 2.0x10 2.2x10 2.4x10 2.6x10

0
0.0
4
4
4
4
4
4
1.6x10 1.8x10 2.0x10 2.2x10 2.4x10 2.6x10

-1

-1

mo /kgh

mo /kgh

(a) Spring equinox

(b) Summer solstice

5.0x10

Qc
4

2.5x10

Wp

2.0x10

2
W /kW

3.0x10

WQ

2.0x10

-1

Wp

W /kW

Q /kJh

-1

WQ

Q /kJh

4.0x10

3.0x10

Qc

1.5x10

1.0x10

1.0x10

5.0x10

0.0
4
1.2x10

1.4x10

1.6x10

1.8x10

0
4
2.0x10

0.0
4
1.2x10

1.4x10

-1

0
4
2.0x10

1.6x10

1.8x10

mo /kgh

mo /kgh-1

(c) Autumnal equinox

(d) Winter solstice

Fig. 19. Impact of mass ow rate of HTO on collected energy and pressure loss.

2.0x10

2.0x10

V=0m
3
V=50m
3
V=100m
3
V=150m

1.2x10

aux

/kJ
aux

8.0x10

12

16

20

0.0

24

12

16

20

Time/h

(a) Spring equinox

(b) Summer solstice

24

2.0x10
3

V=0m
3
V=50m
3
V=100m
3
V=150m

1.6x10

/kJ

1.6x10
1.2x10

aux

/kJ

Time/h

aux

8.0x10
4.0x10

2.0x10

8.0x10

1.2x10

V=0m
3
V=50m
3
V=100m
3
V=150m

8.0x10

4.0x10

4.0x10
0.0

1.2x10

4.0x10
0.0

V=0m
3
V=50m
3
V=100m
3
V=150m

1.6x10

/kJ

1.6x10

12

16

20

24

0.0

12

16

Time/h

Time/h

(c) Autumnal equinox

(d) Winter solstice

20

24

Fig. 20. Auxiliary thermal energy consumption on different heat storage capacities.

storage system at spring equinox and autumn equinox. At summer

solstice, Uaux decreases gradually when V is increased from 0 m3 to
150 m3. It is noticed that when V reaches 150 m3, only a little
amount of auxiliary energy is required from 4:00 to 8:00 as indi-

cated in Fig. 20b. Interestingly, it is found in Fig. 20d that at winter

solstice, the auxiliary energy system should be operated all day
long and the amounts of the auxiliary energy required is same
for different storage volumes because of the rather weak solar

Y.-L. He et al. / Applied Energy 97 (2012) 630641

_ o on spring equinox, summer solstice,

(3) The optimum m
autumnal equinox and winter solstice are determined,
which are, respectively, 2.0  104, 2.0  104, 1.4  104,1.4 
104 kg/h. And, the recommended volumes of thermal storage
system on spring equinox, summer solstice, autumnal equinox and winter solstice are 100 m3, 150 m3, 50 m3, 0 m3,
respectively.

16
15

sys

/%

14
13
12

Spring equinox
Summer solstice

Acknowledgments

Autumnal equinox
Winter solstice

11
10

641

50

100

150

V/m

Fig. 21. Efciency on different heat storage capacity.

radiation intensity in winter. This implies that the thermal storage

system can be removed if the weather condition is always similar
to that at winter solstice in Xian.
Fig. 21 also presents the variation of total system efciency
(gsys) with thermal storage capacity for different seasons. Clearly,
as indicated in the gure, the highest gsys can be achieved when
the thermal storage volumes are 100 m3, 150 m3, 50 m3 and
0 m3, respectively for spring equinox, summer solstice, autumnal
equinox and winter solstice.
Taking into account the dependence of Uaux and gsys on V, the
volumes of 100 m3, 150 m3, 50 m3 and 0 m3 for the thermal storage
systems are, respectively, recommended for the solar thermal
power generation system under the weather conditions like spring
equinox, summer solstice, autumnal equinox and winter solstice in
Xian.
5. Conclusions
This paper presents an integrated model for the typical parabolic trough solar thermal power generation system with Organic
Rankine Cycle. The simulation is model built within the transient
energy simulation package TRNSYS. With the model, the inuences
of several designing and operating parameters on the performance
of the collector eld as well as the whole system are examined. The
main ndings and conclusions are as follows:
(1) When pinter is smaller than 10 Pa, the unit length heat loss of
the solar collector (qloss) increase sharply. However, with
further increasing pinter, the variation of qloss is limited.
(2) With the increase in v, the heat collecting efciency (ghc)
increases quickly at beginning. With further increasing v,
ghc is almost independent on v when v reaches a certain
value. In addition, it is shown that ghc increases with the
increase in Idn but decreases with the increase in h.

This work was supported by the Key Project of National Natural

Science Foundation of China (No. 50736005) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51176155).

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