Application of a Solar Chimney Power Plant to Electrical Generation in Covered Agricultural Fields

Abstract

Abstract Greenhouses are an ideal plant production environment, providing high quality products in all seasons of the year and removed from climatic influences such as wind, frost and rain. However, this type of farming involves costly construction, and it is necessary to consider using it in other aspects, in addition to agriculture. The purpose of the current work is to study the possibility of using a solar chimney power plant (SCPP) in the generation of electric power, thereby meeting the need for energy in agriculture, including lighting, pumps, drip irrigation and other applications. This paper describes an analytical study of solar chimney power plant in a greenhouse environment. The investigation was based on experimental calculations to identify out power from varying the air flow intensity inside the farm, depending on its conditions. The modelling was carried out in an ANSYS environment and the simulation of solar plant used a FLUENT k-ε Module for solving and post-processing the problem. Results showed that a solar chimney power plant, in which the chimney height and diameter were 20 m and 0.3 m, respectively, and the dimensions of the green farm collector 70 m × 50 m, could produce a monthly average of 1.31~2.42 kW electric power throughout the year.