Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 872882

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Energy Conversion and Management

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Design of a small scale stand-alone solar thermal co-generation plant

for an isolated region in Egypt
Suzan Abdelhady a,c, Domenico Borello b,, Eileen Tortora b
a
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Astronautica, Elettrica ed Energetica, Sapienza Universit di Roma, Via Eudossiana 18, 00184 Rome, Italy
b
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Meccanica e Aerospaziale, Sapienza Universit di Roma, Via Eudossiana 18, 00184 Rome, Italy
c
Department of Electrical Engineering, Fayoum University, 63514 Fayoum, Egypt

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Most of Egypts population is concentrated in the Nile Valley (5% of Egypts area), while the western
Received 14 June 2014 desert occupies an area of 50% of the total area of Egypt with a small number of inhabitants. The New
Accepted 28 August 2014 Valley is the largest governorates in Egypt which occupies 45.8% of the total area of the Country and
Available online 29 September 2014
65% of the Western Desert and it is the least densely populated governorate in Egypt. However, New
Valley has started to receive the migrated people from the Nile valley and Delta region and the demand
Keywords: for the energy is continuously increasing. However, the rural area in New Valley still suffers from lack of
Solar energy
access to energy services. The very high transmission losses and costs are the main challenges for elec-
Parabolic trough
Stand alone distributed cogeneration
trication in this area. Then, it is worth to investigate the opportunities for distributed energy generation.
system This area of Egypt receives some of the highest solar radiation in the world (up to 3000 kW h per square
Transient simulations meters per year), making it a prime location for use of this resource. In this study, performance and eco-
LCOE nomic assessment of a small scale stand-alone solar thermal co-generation plant using diathermic oil is
Isolated region in Egypt presented. This conguration is considered as a promising and sustainable solution to provide electricity
and heat to an isolated area satisfying the local loads. Parabolic trough plant has been modeled in TRNSYS
simulation environment integrated with the Solar Thermal Electric Components (STEC) model library.
Both solar and power cycle performances have been modeled based on the solar energy data of the plant
site. The mirrors area and the solar collectors have been designed to optimize the incident solar energy.
As a result, the parabolic trough solar power plant can produce 6 MW of electric power and 21.5 MW of
heat power with an overall efciency of about 85%. The analysis demonstrated that the solar operation
time of the CSP plant in the selected site can be expanded to run during the all day without recurring
to fossil fuel backup. The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of the proposed power plant is estimated
to be equal to 1.25 USD/kW h. The avoided GHG emissions are equal to about 7300 toe/year.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction in 2008 pursued a strategy plan aiming to achieve a contribution of

The fast growth in energy demand and depletion of fossil fuels
represents a severe challenge for the development of the national
economy in Egypt. For supplying energy demand, Egypt depends
mainly on fossil fuels (oil 45% and natural gas 50%) [1]. In recent
years, Egypt starts facing power shortfall problems due to the
declining of the Egyptian crude oil production and natural gas
reserve [2]. Furthermore, Egypts greenhouse gas emissions
(GHG) growth is among the fastest in the world. The energy sector
is the major source of GHG emissions, contributing about 46% of
the national total amount [3]. As a result, the Government of Egypt
Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 06 44585263.
E-mail address: domenico.borello@uniroma1.it (D. Borello).
renewable energies by 20% of the total electricity generation by the
year 2020, and to diversify its energy source through the develop-
ment of new and renewable energy resources.
Egypt is the largest oil and natural gas consumer in Africa,
accounting for almost 25% of total oil consumption and almost
50% of total dry natural gas consumption [4]. Most of Egypts
energy consumption comes from the growth of industrial activity.
The industry energy consumption represents 39% of the total pri-
mary energy consumption in Egypt, while transport counterpart
is 28%, and residential one is 22% [5]. On the other hand, combined
heat and power (CHP) systems (i.e. cogeneration), demonstrated to
represent a signicant opportunity for increasing energy savings
and GHG emission mitigation, both in residential and industrial
sectors [610]. Furthermore, renewable energy based cogeneration

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2014.08.066
0196-8904/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 S. Abdelhady et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 872882 873

Nomenclature

Ecse converted solar energy (GW h/y) g overall efciency (%)

Eel global electric energy output (GW h/y) gel reference electric efciency (%)
Eg effective solar energy supply (GW h/y) gth reference thermal efciency (%)
ETES,c TES charge energy (GW h/y)
ETES,d TES discharge energy (GW h/y) Acronyms
Et1, Et2, Et3 turbines electric energy output (GW h/y) CAC calcium aluminate cement
Eth global thermal energy output (GW h/y) CSP Concentrated Solar Power
m_ CSP diathermic oil ow rate from solar eld (kg/h) CTES Concrete Thermal Energy Storage
m_t steam ow rate to a single turbine (kg/h) EF emission factor
m_ HQ high quality steam ow rate for industry use (kg/h) GHG green house gases
m_s steam ow rate (kg/h) HTF Heat Transfer Fluid
m_d diathermic oil ow rate demand (kg/h) ISCCS Integrated Solar Combined Cycle System
m_ TES;c diathermic oil ow rate to TES charge (kg/h) MENA Middle East and North Africa
m_ TES;d diathermic oil ow rate from TES discharge (kg/h) NREL National Renewable Energy Laboratory
m_ HTF diathermic oil ow rate to steam generation section (kg/h) PC Portland Cement
m_e exceeding steam ow rate (kg/h) RC Rankine cycle
nt number of active turbines RE renewable energy
x the steam to water ratio STEC Solar Thermal Electric Component

technologies can lead to optimization of energy saving potentials reaching 2400 kW h/m2/year. In addition, an extended unied
and polluting emissions [11,12]. Raj et al. [13] presented a review power grid and an expanded natural gas pipeline [26] are present.
on cogeneration technologies based on renewable energy. From The second project is Kom Ombo 100 MW CSP plant. The site has
the environmental and economic aspect, solar energy appears as an average yearly DNI of 2516 kW h/m2/year. The plant is under
a convenient emission-free source able to provide heat and elec- construction and is located 60 km from Aswan, at N 24.62 and E
tricity [1315]. 32.89 (see Fig. 1) [26].
Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is the most powerful and suit-
able choice for cogeneration application, for its capability to pro-
1.2. Objectives of the study
vide electric and heat energy [1619]. Concentrating technologies
are in four common forms, parabolic trough (opened and enclosed
The most suitable area for the exploitation of solar energy in
trough), Stirling dishes, concentrating linear Fresnel reector, and
Egypt is the western desert having the highest solar radiation in
solar power tower [18,20,21]. Parabolic trough eld plants are
the world (up to 3000 kW h/m2/year) [28]. Furthermore, most of
the most developed and reliable CSP technology [22]. The mini-
Egypts population is concentrated in the Nile Valley (5% of Egypts
mum direct normal irradiance to obtain the economic viability of
area) with very high population density (900 capita per km2), while
CSP plants at todays rates is 2000 kW h/m2/y [23]. The most of
the areas with a suitable solar resource, Middle East and North
Africa (MENA region), South Africa, India, Australia, North America
and South America, overlap with desert zones and have a low pop-
ulation density. It is estimated that the world region Africa/Europe/
Asia could power 3.5 billion people within 2000 km of potential
CSP areas (without considering land availability constraints) [24].

1.1. Concentrating solar power (CSP) potential in Egypt

Egypt is located in the middle of the MENA region, the most

suitable area for CSP applications [23]. The Solar Atlas, issued in
1991, indicates that Egypt has a high solar availability ranging
between 5.5 and more than 9.0 kWh/m2/day of average annual
direct normal solar radiation, from north to south (see Fig. 1)
[25]. The sunshine duration ranges between 9 and 11 h/day with
very few cloudy days. According to [23], CSP potential in Egypt is
the highest economic electricity potential from Renewable Energy
sources, amounting to 73,656 TW h/year.
The rst CSP project implemented in Egypt is the Kuraymat
Integrated Solar Combined Cycle System (ISCCS) power plant, with
total installed capacity of 140 MW and solar share of 20 MW, using
parabolic trough technology integrated with combined cycle
power plant using natural gas as a fuel. The plant site is at Kuray-
mat, located 90 km South from Cairo (see Fig. 1), and has been
selected for its location (an uninhabited at desert land) and the
source availability, with an high intensity direct solar radiation Fig. 1. Solar map of Egypt indicating CSP plants location [27].
874 S. Abdelhady et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 872882

the New Valley occupies an area of 65% of the Western Desert and
45.8% of the total area of the Country with a very limited popula-
tion (0.4 capita per km2). Accordingly, New Valley receives the
migrated people from the Nile Valley and Delta region and thus
the energy demand is increasing. Moreover, it is expected that
New Valley governorate will participate in the growth of the Egyp-
tian industrial load, as the Egyptian government is making efforts

to develop this region. The transmission costs for delivering electri-
cal energy to areas located in the desert are very high. Then, in this
region, the opportunities for distributed cogeneration system
based solar energy must be investigated.
Despite the presence of many analysis for cogeneration system
based solar energy in many countries in the world, there is a lack of
studies that have attempted to investigate solar thermal power
plants and assess their performance in this region in Egypt. Then,
the main objective of the present study is to make a rst evaluation
about the feasibility of stand alone cogeneration plants in Egypt,
quantifying the annual and monthly energy production, and the
fossil fuels saving as well the GHG emission mitigation. This con-
guration is considered as a promising and sustainable solution
to provide electricity and heat to an isolated area able to satisfy
the local loads.
1.3. Paper outline
This work deals with the assessment of 200,000 m2 mirrors
parabolic trough eld, designed to provide 6 MW of electric power
and 21.5 MW of thermal power. According to National Renewable
Energy Laboratory (NREL) [29], the total land area required for par-
abolic trough power plant is 1520 times of the mirrors area. The
estimated total land area required of the proposed power is to
equal 34 km2. The proposed installation site is Kharga Oasis, in
Egypt (Fig. 1). The time-dependent behavior and the performance
of the proposed plant, inuenced by the meteorological variations,
were carried out by means of a transient model of the plant, over a
one-year period with an hourly time step. The transient model and
the simulations were performed in the TRNSYS framework [30]
integrated with the STEC library [31].
The feasibility of transient simulations for assessing the plant
performance during the planning of energy processes is conrmed
by several studies [16,32,33]. Recently, some papers appeared
conrming the good agreement between simulated and real per-
formances [34,35]. In the next sections, the environmental and
load data for the selected site are presented. Then, the plant
description and its transient model are described, followed by
the results of the simulations and the discussion. Concluding
remarks will close the paper.
2. Description of the proposed CSP plant
2.1. The climatic conditions of the plant site
The environmental data (solar radiation, temperature, humid-
ity) are very important to select the site for building the solar
thermal power plant. The site under consideration is Kharga Oasis
(latitude 25 270 N and longitude 30340 E) in New Valley governor-
ate, at 200 km from the Nile Valley (see Fig. 1). The annual direct
normal irradiation is 3000 kW h/m2/year. Fig. 2 presents the aver-
age daily Direct Normal Irradiation (DNI) by months for a typical
year of the selected site, obtained by integration of the hourly solar
radiation data which have been generated by a weather data gen-
erator component in TRNSYS library. The weather data generator
component generates a typical meteorological year (TMY) data
set of the selected site, which contains hourly values for the DNI,
ambient temperature, wind speed, sun angle, atmospheric
kWh/m2/d
Month
Fig. 2. Average daily direct normal irradiation per month at Kharga site.
pressure and solar azimuth angle for one complete year based on
the monthly average values of solar radiation, dry bulb tempera-
ture, humidity ratio, and wind speed (Table 1) with respect to
the geographical position of the selected site. This Meteorological
data is used to feed the weather data of the solar thermal system.
Fig. 2 clearly shows that the irradiation level is high (>5 kW h/m2/
d) over the whole year. The peak is reached in April, May and June
(spring season). The high level of irradiation during these 3 months
was computed equal to 8.39 kW h/m2/day, 8.60 kW h/m2/day, and
8.56 kW h/m2/day, respectively.
2.2. Electric and thermal load conditions of the plant site
Due to the large expansion in the residential compounds and
the widespread use of the new domestic appliance, Egypt wit-
nessed fast growing in the residential electricity load between
2009 and 2011. The total electric load in New Valley amounted
to 248 GW h in 2009 (123.3 GW h in Kharga city) [36]. In 2010
the total population in New Valley was estimated in 200,000
inhabitants with an average growth rate of over 2.23% per year
[37]. In particular, the 50.5% of the population, distributed on
23,532 families, was located in urban areas. The remaining 49.5%
of the population was located in rural areas and distributed on
23,359 families [37]. Furthermore, the rural area in New Valley
governorate depends mainly on diesel generators for electricity
service, and experienced problems from lack of supply of diesel
and fuel price increase. Renewable energy sources are the only
available alternative to get out of this problem.
In the present study, the electric energy output will be com-
pared to the rural households load. In Fig. 3 the seasonal typical
daily electric power loads in per unit basis (P.u.) for a rural house-
hold are represented [38]. We selected the maximum daily load
570 W as the power basis. It can be seen that in winter there is
the lowest energy demand (4.54 kW h/day) and in summer the
highest one (5.74 kW h/day). Spring and autumn have the same
behavior with an energy request of 5.01 kW h/day.
The yearly hourly electric load curve was then obtained from
such curves considering the 3307 rural families living near Kharga
city [37], leading to a yearly electric load of 6.1 GW h/year in
Kharga rural zone.
From the thermal energy point of view, considering that the
industry energy consumption represents 39% of the total energy
consumption [5] and the growing of the Egyptian industrial activ-
ities [27], it is expected that energy demand (heat and power) by
 S. Abdelhady et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 872882 875

Table 1
Weather monthly data for Kharga Oasis.

Month Solar radiation (kW h/m2) Humidity (%) Temperature (C) Wind speed (km/h)
January 4.43 42 22 18
February 5.43 35 25 22.2
March 6.38 30 29 18.5
April 7.71 21 35 11.1
May 7.66 20 38 14.8
June 8.02 20 41 20.2
July 7.90 23 40 14.8
August 7.45 24 40 18.5
September 6.70 30 37 20.4
October 5.64 32 34 25.9
November 4.68 41 28 11.1
December 4.13 46 24 25.9

Winter Spring

Summer Autumn

Fig. 3. Seasonal (winter, spring, summer and autumn) daily electric load curves in P.u for a rural household in New Valley [38].

food, building materials, leather, paper products, ceramics,

refractories, basic chemicals, engineering industries, textiles and
clothing projects will fast increase [39,40]. New Valley governor-
ate will participate in the growth of the Egyptian industrial load,
as the Egyptian government is making efforts to develop this
region. According to [41], the heating requirements for the indus-
try of diary, textile, pulp and paper industries can be met by
temperatures between 80 C and 180 C. In the present study
we assume that the industrial users which can be satised by this
project are the textile and paper industries as these industries
is the largest energy consumption industries in Egypt (see
Table 2).
The loads are estimated according to the available load data for
the textile and paper factories in Egypt [42]. Here we assume to
Fig. 4. Monthly electric energy consumption the selected industry loads [42].
produce steam for feeding the textile factory and heat water for

feeding paper factory. Concerning the aim of the following simula-

Table 2
Industry load data [42]. tions, an hourly consumption energy and steam load curves should
be used. Nevertheless, since the lack of such data [42,43], it was not
Paper factory Textile factory
possible to perform an hourly-based comparison between load and
Average demand 1.3 MW 1.5 MW availability and the comparison has been made on a monthly basis.
Annual energy consumption 11.07 GW h/y 13.4 GW h/y
Fig. 4 shows the monthly electric energy consumption for the
Average steam load 6 tonnes/h 1.31.8 tonnes/h
selected industrial [42]. Fig. 5 shows the monthly distribution of
876 S. Abdelhady et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 872882

Fig. 7. Parabolic trough principle operation [46].

Fig. 5. Monthly distribution of the average hourly steam consumption for one
paper and textile factory [42].
Table 3
Solar collector characteristics.

Collector length 100 m

Aperture width 2.3 m
Focal length 0.76 m
Row spacing 10 m
Collector orientation NS

Table 4
Therminol VP-1 characteristics at 350 C [50].

Specic heat (cp) 2,436.65 J/(kg K)

Density (q) 764.63 kg/m3
Dynamic viscosity (l) 165.54 106 kg/(m s)

Collectors are the most widespread technology to concentrate the

sunlight for energy conversion into electricity [44] (see the sketch
in Fig. 7). The mirror is oriented in order to reect sunlight and it is
concentrated in the focal line of the tube, which contains a uid
that is heated to a high temperature by the solar radiation. The
uid can reach temperatures up to 500 C [44]. The characteristics
of the selected solar collector (Table 3) are based on the model of
Lippke [45] and they allow a more efcient performance for the
plant site with respect to other designs in [44].

Fig. 6. Power plant ow diagram.

2.3.2. Thermal energy storage
We assume that the parabolic trough eld is equipped with a
Concrete Thermal Energy Storage (CTES). Concrete is a construc-
the average hourly (saturated) steam consumption for the selected tion material comprised of cementitious materials (Portland
industrial nal users [42] (pressure = 4 bar, temperature = 144 C Cement PC) and/or Calcium Aluminate Cement (CAC)), coarse and
about). ne aggregates, water and possibly chemical admixtures which
are used to improve the hardened properties [47]. CTES is chosen
2.3. Specications of the proposed CSP plant
Table 5
The proposed plant, whose main components are indicated in Main components description and nominal size.
Fig. 6, is composed by a parabolic trough eld connected to a
Component
Rankine cycle for the solar power conversion. As can be notices, Solar eld mirrors area 200,000 m2
the plant has two uid circuits: (i) a diathermic oil circuit, which TES 10 h (329 MW h)
after catching solar energy exchanges its heat in the Rankine cycle Steam turbines 3  2 MWel
Condenser 21.5 MWth
section or in the thermal energy storage section; (ii) a water/steam
circuit, which in the Rankine cycle section uses the heat released Diathermic oil circuit
CSP max/min temperature 427/196.5 C
from the diathermic oil to produce superheated steam to be sent
Max/min ow rate to RC 261,555/50,675 kg/h
in turbine. In the following sections the main components of the
Water/steam circuit
plant are briey described.
Max/min pressure 60/1.34 bar
Max/min temperature 320/110 C
2.3.1. Parabolic trough eld Design water/steam mass ow rate 10.08 kg/s
Electric power 6 MW
The proposed cogeneration plant is mainly driven by a
Thermal power 21.5 MW
parabolic trough eld of 200,000 m2 mirrors area. Parabolic Trough
 S. Abdelhady et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 872882 877

Table 6 the storage bottom, the storage is considered full and the charging
Rankine cycle thermodynamic data. process is stopped. Accordingly, the storage is discharged by a cold
Output T (C) P (bar) h (W h/kg) X () uid (cold oil) owing in the opposite direction and cooling the
Condenser 109.97 1.43 128 0 concrete. When the uid exit temperature reaches a certain
Pump 110.59 60 130 0 temperature limit (300 C) on the top, the storage is considered
Economizer 275.67 60 337 0 as empty and the discharging process is stopped.
Evaporator 275.67 60 773 1
Superheater 320 60 820 1
Turbines 109.97 1.43 672 0.88 2.3.3. Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF)
The thermal uid used in the solar eld and in the steam gener-
ation cycle of CSP plant is Therminol VP-1 [31,34,48]. This thermal
oil can be heated up to 400 C without vaporization [33,35,49].
because it is relatively low cost and high heat capacity [47]. The Therminol VP-1 HTF has the highest thermal stability of all organic
integration of the CTES allows the distribution of 329 MW h over heat transfer uids at 400 C, it is designed to meet the demanding
10 h operation, extending the energy supply time. This value was requirements of liquid phase systems (from 12 C) or vapor phase
obtained in a dedicated simulation of the CTES made in the design systems (up to 400 C). Liquid phase characteristics of this uid at
phase, by completely charging the CTES and then discharging it average operating temperature of 350 C are presented in Table 4.
without any supplemental charge. This operation allowed to calcu- It is shown that the uid has a signicant operating advantage due
late the size of CTES in order to guarantee an operational time of to its low viscosity, which means less power need to allow its cir-
10 h without solar radiation. culation through the solar eld.
CTES is charged by a hot uid (hot oil from solar eld) owing The diathermic oil supplies thermal energy to the Rankine Cycle
through parallel pipes in a certain ow direction, heating the sur- (RC) by means of the control system, which regulates the ow-rate
rounding concrete material. During charging, the hot oil moves between parabolic trough eld, thermal storage and RC, see Fig. 6.
slowly with the ow direction along the storage. When the uid On the HTF side, the maximum design HTF temperature during
exit temperature exceeds a certain temperature limit (400 C) at storage charge is considered to be 400 C and the minimum design

Fig. 8. Model control logic.

878 S. Abdelhady et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 872882

Table 7
Overall performance data.

RE side Direct normal radiation (GW h/y) 540

Converted solar energy (GW h/y) Ecse 180
TES energy charge (GW h/y) ETESc 84
TES energy discharge (GW h/y) ETESd 84
Effective solar energy supply (GW h/y) Eg = Ecse + ETSEd  ETESc 180
Solar eld duty hours (h/y) 3385
TES charge hours (h/y) 2897
TES discharge hours (h/y) 5244
TES discharge hours without solar conversion (h/y) 4814
Outputs Turbine 1 energy output (GW h/y) Et1 14
Turbine 2 energy output (GW h/y) Et2 11
Turbine 3 energy output (GW h/y) Et3 6.7
Global electric energy output (GW h/y) Eel = Et1 + Et2 + Et3 31.7
Steam @ 143.67 C and 4 bar (tonnes/y) 5739
Water @ 90 C and 1 bar (tonnes/y) 1,565,869
Global thermal energy output (GW h/y) Eth 122
Turbine 1 duty hours (h) 7980
Turbine 2 duty hours (h) 6295
Turbine 3 duty hours (h) 3779
RC system Net electric efciency (%) gel 17.57
Net thermal efciency (%) gth 67.80
Overall efciency (%) g 85.36
Electric index () Eel/Eth 0.26
Primary energy ratio (PER)a () (Eel/gel + Eth/gth)/Eg 1.34
a
For the primary energy ratio evaluation, the values for the reference electric and thermal efciencies are gel = 0.38 and gth = 0.8.

section. Finally, the wet steam passes in the condenser, where the
cooling ow is heated up to 90 C and fed as hot water to local
industries. The components sizes are summarized in Table 5. The
thermodynamic data of the Rankine cycle are shown in Table 6.

2.3.5. Transient model

In order to evaluate the performances of the plant, a typical
meteorological year (TMY) data set for Kharga Oasis was used (as
specied above). The model has been implemented aiming to max-
imize the efciency. To this end the control logic (see Fig. 8) works
on a two level strategy, regulating the HTF rate at each time step
with respect to a design ow rate for the RC (TES control) and
the steam turbines activation ow rate (turbines control). The
TES control regulates the HTF ow sent to the steam generation
section m_ HTF determining three possible situations:

Fig. 9. Monthly distribution of the TES discharged energy. 1. In case the CSP direct contribution m _ CSP exceeds the design
HTF ow rate m _ d the surplus ow rate m _ TED;c is sent to the
TES.
HTF temperature during storage discharge is considered to be 2. In case of CSP direct contribution decit, the lacking ow rate is
300 C. It is worth noting that the three parallel steam turbines taken from the TES m _ TES;d , if available.
work in backpressure (1.43 bar) as the outow steam is used for 3. In case of HTF ow rate lack from both solar eld and TES, the
producing heat for the industrial processes. system will run at partial load or be out of duty.

2.3.4. Rankine cycle modeling
In the RC, the working three turbines are fed with a steam mass
ow rate that is always close to the design conditions (accepting a
10% variation), eventually switching off one or more of the turbines
when the steam is not sufcient. Having three small turbines in
place of a single one of equivalent size helps in a better manage-
ment of the variable steam ow availability adjusting the distribu-
tion of the steam to the turbines and limiting the amount of
residual steam. Furthermore, in case of maintenance or damages,
the presence of three machines in place of one gives the possibility
to continue the plant operation although with a lower energy pro-
duction, in place of a complete shutdown.
The residual hot ow, not processed by the turbines, is rstly
sent to an evaporator in order to produce the high pressure steam.
Then, after a passage through a lamination valve to be brought at
1.43 bar, such ow is mixed with the output ows of the turbines.
The control logic of the turbines duty is presented in the following
The steam generator section will produce a certain amount of
steam m _ s . When the solar section is not able to supply the design
ow rate to the RC, a smaller steam ow rate is produced. This
would imply a variable input to the turbines section. As known,
steam turbines have bad performance when working in off-design
conditions, therefore the ow will be processed by three identical
turbines, that (as stated before) will be switched-off when the
available ow rate is not sufcient for feeding them with a steam
ow rate close to design conditions. In particular, each turbine
has a 2 MW nominal power when working in backpressure at an
outlet pressure of 1.43 bars and a design steam ow rate of
12,000 kg/h. The turbines are able to work with a maximum ow
rate variation of 10%, thus a single turbine can be activated only
if such ow rate is available. To this end the turbine control calcu-
lates the number of the turbines to be activated (nt) and the ow
rate for each turbine m _ t with respect to the available steam ow
rate. The steam ow that cannot be processed by the turbines m _ e
 S. Abdelhady et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 872882
Fig. 10. Hourly electric power (a) and monthly electric energy (b) production.
is sent to a heat exchanger in order to provide a high quality steam
at 4 bar pressure m_ HQ to a local paper industry. The ows toward
the turbines and the heat exchanger are regulated by an in-house
made TRNSYS control.
3. Results and discussion
The overall performance data of the solar eld are shown in
Table 7. The studied solar eld positioned in Kharga is able to
Fig. 11. Hourly based electric energy matching between production and rural residential load of Kharga.
879
produce 180 GW h/y of thermal energy during 3385 operation
hours, converting 33.38% of the available direct normal radiation.
It is evident that the TES has a key role in the thermal energy sup-
ply to the RC section and its operating temperature. TES allows
feeding diathermic oil by 84 GW h/y, additional 4814 h/y during
periods with absence of direct solar contribution. Thus TES allows
increasing the time use value of the electricity, reducing the mis-
match between the loads and available resource, and increase
the system efciency. As a result, TES allows reducing the size of
the solar eld and reducing the costs of the plant and their impact
on the levelized cost of energy. Fig. 9 shows the monthly distribu-
tion of the energy discharged from the TES. The thermal discharged
energy is approximately proportional to the power generation. The
maximum power discharged reached in April and minimum
discharge reached in December.
The nal energy balance of the RE side gives place to an effec-
tive solar energy supply of 649 GW h/y to the RC. The global elec-
tric energy output amounts to 31.7 GW h/y mainly converted by
the turbines 1 and 2. In particular, the rst turbine works for
7980 h/y producing 14 GW h/y, the second one works for 6295 h/
y producing 11 GW h/y. The third turbine works for only 3779 h/
y generating 6.7 GW h/y.
3.1. Electric energy output
The global output power, Fig. 10a), ranges between 5.9 and
1.47 MW; nevertheless, it is evident that there are occasions of
power output absence (i.e. 780 h/y). The very limited period of
no power generation indicate that continuous electric power pro-
duction can be obtained by expanding the thermal storage size.
Also, it is worth to consider that the system is completely fed by
a renewable energy source, without any fossil fuel contribution.
The variation of the monthly net energy production of the pro-
posed power plant is shown in Fig. 10b). It can be seen that the
monthly production is nearly constant during the summer period.
The results show that the high power amounts are reached in
spring and summer seasons respectively, due to the highest
amount of the solar radiation occurs in such seasons (see Table 1).
The lowest amount is in December.
Fig. 11 shows the seasonal comparison between the electric
load of the 3307 rural families in Kharga and the produced energy,
subdivided in effective energy supply, energy surplus and energy
decit. The obtained data are derived from the hourly matching.
The results show that spring, due to the high production and low
consumption, is the best tted season, with a 97.9% of direct supply
rate, and only a 2.07% of energy decit occurring in 59 h, although
a 503.7% of energy surplus.
. . . .
. . . .
. . . .
880 S. Abdelhady et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 872882

hourly-based comparisons between load and availability, it is rea-

sonable to suppose that the available steam may be completely
absorbed by the selected industries. Obviously, these conditions
entail the use of the existent steam production systems in the
industries for the unsatised load coverage. According to [41] the
heating requirements for the textile and paper industries can be
met by temperatures between 80 C and 160 C. We assume that
the lacking of steam demand can be satised by the monthly dis-
tribution of the hot water production at 90 C shown in Fig. 14.

3.3. System efciencies

The efciencies are calculated as the ratio between the corre-

spondent energy output (Eel and Eth) and the effective solar energy
supply from the solar eld (Eg) in Table 7 as follow:
Fig. 12. Monthly comparison between electric energy surplus from residential load
Eel
sector and selected industries load. gel 1
Eg

Eth
gth 2
Eg

Eel Eth
g 3
Eg
The electric efciency (gel) of the proposed system is about
17.6%, while the thermal efciency (gth) is about 68%. The overall
efciency (g) is about 85.36. Although the electric efciency does
not seem very high, it is worth consider that the system is com-
pletely fed by a renewable energy source, without any fossil fuel
contribution. An important nding is the Primary Energy Ratio
(PER, here equal to 1.37- see Table 7) which, with a value higher
than 1, indicates the effective capability of the system to generate
both electric and thermal energy with an efciency higher than
two separate systems.

Fig. 13. Textile steam demand and steam supply comparison. 3.4. Levelized cost of energy (LCOE)

The levelized cost of energy is the cost of electricity (USD/kWh)

The exceeded electric energy output will be useful to provide generated considering several aspects. It includes the initial capi-
energy to the selected paper and textile industries. Fig. 12 shows tal, discount rate, as well as the costs of continuous operation, fuel,
the monthly-based comparison between the exceeding energy and maintenance. In this work, we will use the formula used for
from the residential load sector and the selected textile and paper calculating the LCOE of renewable energy technologies proposed
industry loads. As can be seen, the available energy is insufcient by IRENA [51].
only in the months of January, October, November and December.
Pn It Mt F t
The surplus occurs in the remaining months. This disparity can be t1 1rt
reduced by shifting some industrial electrical consumption from LCOE Pn Et
4
peak load months to peak energy production months. The total t1 1rt

electric load is equal to 31.2 GW h/y and the total electric energy
production is equal to 31.7 GW h/y. The exceeded electric energy
output could be useful to provide energy to other local industrial
and commercial load.

3.2. Thermal energy output

Besides the electric energy generation, the system is able to pro-

vide 122 GW h/y of thermal energy, supplied to the industries as
steam at 4 bar and 143.67 C and hot water at 1 bar and 90 C.
Globally, the steam and hot water production respectively amount
to 5739 tonnes/year and 1,565,869 tonnes/year. Fig. 13 shows the
monthly comparison between the selected industries steam load
and the steam availability. The monthly industries steam load
has been estimated based on the average hourly data, previously
showed in Fig. 4, by considering, for safe purposes, only a 12 h/
day operation. Despite this strong hypothesis, the available steam
is comparable only to the textile factory steam need. This Fig. 14. Monthly distribution of the hot water availability (hot water @ 90 C and
demonstrate that, even if it was not possible to perform an 1 bar).
 S. Abdelhady et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 88 (2014) 872882
 t
DR
Et E0 1  5 Moreover, CSP will help to secure the energy supply, and overcome
100
where:
 LCOE = the average lifetime levelized cost of electricity genera-
tion (USD/kW h).
 It = investment expenditures in the year t; which includes the
following costs: land cost, solar thermal collector system, ther-
mal energy storage, power block system, labor cost, road con-
struction, connection transmission line, substation. The
investment costs of CSP systems in range between 4.2 USD/W
and 8.7 USD/W [46]. In this work we use the average value to
estimate the LCOE.
 Mt = operations and maintenance expenditures in the year t; the
operation costs of CSP systems are relatively low; in this work,
annual O&M cost of 2% of the investment cost is used [52].
 Ft = fuel expenditures in the year t, zero for most of renewable
power plant.
 Et = electricity generation in the year t.
 E0 = electricity produced in the rst year of the installation,
31.67 GW h.
 r = discount rate, 10% [46].
 n = life of the system; here we consider a useful lifetime of
30 years for CSP systems, as estimated by most studies [52].
 DR = Degradation factor: for CSP systems, an annual output
drop of 0.2% has been considered [52] mainly as a result of
the degradation of the turbines.
The LCOE of the proposed power plant is estimated to 1.25 USD/
kW h. However, the total investment cost of the proposed power
plant is estimated to 38.7 million USD. This cost is very competitive
compared to the expected electricity transmission cost from the
utility grid. The baseline transmission cost for extra high voltage
transmission line is 2,967,000 USD/mile [53]. It is expected that
the base line transmission cost of electricity from the utility grid
to Kharga will be more than 368 million USD.
3.5. Environmental impact
To estimate the greenhouse gas emission reduction (mitigation)
potential of the parabolic trough solar thermal power plant, the
CO2 emission factor (EF) which currently characterizes Egypt
power system of 466 g CO2/kW h [54] is used. The proposed plant
potentially allows saving 71,712.22 tonnes CO2/y. Finally, based on
the country fossil fuel consumption for electricity generation of
230 toe/GW h [55], the plant could be able to reduce the use of
fossil fuel by amount of 7291 toe/year.
4. Summary and conclusion
An investigation of a solar parabolic trough collector eld for
stand-alone power plant with thermal storage is discussed. The wes-
tern desert climate conditions in Egypt were assumed (Kharga
oasis). A model was developed in TRNSYS simulation environment
to design the suggested RE power plant. The plant site has been
selected in reasons of its position (located far from the utility grid),
its high direct solar radiation intensity (which reaches up to
3000 kW h/m2/year), its at desert land, and its industrial and tour-
istic interest. The hourly power output from the parabolic linear col-
lector power plant was calculated. The produced heat and electricity
are sufcient to fed about 3300 rural users near Kharga city and two
primary factories (in the textile and paper sectors). The cost of elec-
tricity for the proposed plant is evaluated with a very competitive
cost, especially when compared with the costs of an enlargement
of the national grid. Finally the avoided GHG emissions were esti-
mated. This project aims to contribute of the Egyptian government
881
plan for a sustainable development of the New Valley governorate.
the electricity cut offs experienced in the summer months in Egypt.
On the other hand, the electricity and heat supply from CSP plant will
boost the development of the industrial activities, which in turn will
improve the Egyptian economy.
Acknowledgement
The rst author is grateful to FFEEBB2- Erasmus Mundus Action 2
project for supporting her PhD study at the University of Rome La
Sapienza.
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