Hybridization of parabolic trough power plants with natural gas through integration of industrial gas turbines

Hybridization could be a central intermediate step on the way to a 100 % renewable era. For hybridization of solar thermal power plants natural gas is the preferred fossil fuel source due to its lower specific CO2-Emissions and the technical options by means of integration concepts into the power cycle process. Therefore the objective of this publication is the evaluation of hybridization of parabolic trough power plants using state of the art thermal oil as heat transfer fluid with natural gas. The study is based on the power plant configuration of Shams One. Initially, in order to develop a meaningful operational logic for the annual yield simulations the main technical boundary conditions have been identified and the operational logic has been build. In a further step, a gas turbine has been integrated into the base case power plant. Contrarily to the recently common discussed ISCC concept, in this work small gas turbines in the performance class from 10 to 20 MWel have been used. Thus, a high solar share of still over 76 % and a comparatively low natural gas demand at an electricity conversion efficiency of up to 43 % are achievable on yearly basis. © 2016, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.