Abstract
Solar chimney power plant (SCPP) are used to harness solar energy and generate power, but their low conversion efficiency motivates strategies to improve output, such as integrating the collector with photovoltaic (PV) cells.This study presents an experimental and numerical investigation of a hybrid PV/SCPP, in which part of the glass collector is replaced by PV panels while hot-water pipes on the collector floor supply additional thermal gain, and compares its performance with a traditional (glass-covered) solar chimney model under the same conditions.Both configurations were built and tested outdoors in Karbala, Iraq, and the results were compared with a 3D ANSYS FLUENT computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the same geometry.The maximum air velocity at the chimney outlet reached 3.33 m/s (hybrid case) and 3.388 m/s (traditional case) in the numerical results, while the overall maximum collector air temperature reached 321.5 K and 326.8 K, respectively; CFD predictions agreed with experimental measurements to within an average absolute error of 0.74%.The results show that covering part of the collector with PV panels reduces the thermal gain available to drive the airflow, and therefore the kinetic power available at the turbine location, compared with the glasscovered case.However, the PV panels' direct electrical output substantially exceeds this kinetic-power reduction, so the hybrid configuration's total power output (kinetic plus PV) is higher than the traditional configuration over the tested period (peaking near 24.4 W at 13:00).This trade-off between reduced thermal/kinetic gain and increased PV electrical output, observed here for a single PV coverage ratio, motivates further study of alternative coverage ratios in future work.
Abstract by the authors, reproduced under the CC BY 4.0 licence. Original publication via the link below.