Performance and Water Consumption of the Solar Steam-Injection Gas Turbine Cycle

Abstract

Solar heat at moderate temperatures around 200 °C can be utilized for augmentation of conventional steam-injection gas turbine power plants. Solar concentrating collectors for such an application can be simpler and less expensive than collectors used for current solar power plants. We perform a thermodynamic analysis of this hybrid cycle, focusing on improved modeling of the combustor and the water recovery condenser. The cycle's water consumption is derived and compared to other power plant technologies. The analysis shows that the performance of the hybrid cycle under the improved model is similar to the results of the previous simplified analysis. The water consumption of the cycle is negative due to water production by combustion, in contrast to other solar power plants that have positive water consumption. The size of the needed condenser is large, and a very low-cost condenser technology is required to make water recovery in the solar STIG cycle technically and economically feasible.