A Thermodynamic Study of a Conventional 500 MW Coal Fired Power Plant Hybridized with Solar Energy

In this work, an effort is made to evaluate the performance improvement and harmful emission reduction of a 500 Megawatt conventional coal-fired thermal power plant by installing a parabolic solar trough at the low pressure heater for regeneration. Here, parabolic solar troughs are used in place of LP heaters for heating the feed water before it enters the economizer of the boiler. As a result, the steam flow rate through turbines will increase, which boosts the work output and also decreases the overall coal consumption, resulting in a huge reduction of harmful emissions of various gases as well as a reduction in the investment cost on coal. As an outcome, the objective of this research is to develop a thermodynamic model that can be used to quantify improvements in network output, total thermal efficiency, and daily coal consumption while reducing ash generation, SO2, and CO2 emissions.