Stay informed about the latest developments in solar technology, energy storage cabinets, outdoor enclosures, and renewable energy solutions.
Using TRNSYS software, the proposed Parabolic Trough Collector (PTC)-based solar heating system paired with the boiler is modelled. Sensible thermal energy storage (TES) system is integrated into the refinery's process heating to handle the intermittent nature of solar energy.
Conclusion The present study investigates the feasibility of solar hybrid system to generate steam in the oil refinery to maintain the temperature of heavy crude oil products before despatching from storage tanks. Due to the intermittent behaviour of solar energy, the solar hybrid system is integrated with a sensible heat storage tank.
Most of the steam is to be used for the atmospheric distillation process, which is one of the most energy-intensive processes of a refinery. Furthermore, the exergy balance is shown in Fig. 12 c, which attests to an exergy efficiency of the plant of 55.5%. The energy efficiency determined from the energy balance is 82.4%.
Other studies in the literature considered coupling solar energy systems to oil refineries to decarbonize their operation. The applicability and feasibility of introducing a concentrated solar power (CSP) system to reduce partial reliance on process heaters of a crude oil refinery was studied by Danish et al. .
Approach used for providing solar energy includes the utilisation of a solar tower system with a solar reactor atop the solar tower or preheater tower in a conventional cement plant. Analysis considered thermal energy substitution ranging from 100% to 50%.
Gonzalez and Flamant (2013) designed a hybrid model that uses solar and fossil fuel energy to fulfill the thermal energy requirement for cement manufacturing. Concentrated solar thermal (CST) is a potential replacement for 40%–100% of the thermal energy needed in a conventional cement plant.
This study shows that it is feasible to implement concentrated solar energy for the calcination process of cement production. Solar resource for the chosen plant location permits operation for an average of 12 h per day. 9 h of these 12 h are useable, with the remaining 3 h being utilized to heat up and cool down the solar reactor.
Concentrated solar power system is designed for cement industry. Substitution of required thermal energy ranging from 100% to 50% is studied. 7600 heliostats with 570 ha land required for 50% conventional energy replacement with solar energy. Selected conventional cement plant could save 419 thousand tons of CO 2 annually.
