Fast Feasibility Assessment for Solar Thermal Systems in Industry
Abstract
Industry has a large technical potential for solar thermal systems (STS). One main difficulty of realizing this potential is the considerable engineering costs associated with the individual data acquisition and techno- economic assessment of each facility, as they often have unique load profiles, working temperatures, and solar resource. It is important to reduce this effort and simplify the current, but still necessary, sophisticated feasibility assessment. Therefore, a guideline is developed to support a quick and accurate analysis for the integration of STS in industrial processes. The concept is based on the preparation and processing of an energy audit to identify the main heat consumers and to assess the integration points. The feasibility assessment of a STS for identified processes is performed by pre-dimensioning the collector field and storage volume, while including a yield assessment for the STS. Therefore different process’ load profiles, working temperatures, collector technologies, and solar resources are examined and included as nomograms into the guideline. With this, planners are able to obtain a quick but reliable estimation of the costs and performance of solar thermal systems.
Keywords
Process heat, Solar thermal systems, Feasibility, Integration, Dimensioning