Experimental study for ground type effect on solar chimney power plant

Abstract EN

Solar chimney power plant is a technology capable to generate electric energy through a wind turbine using the solar radiation as energy source; nevertheless, one of the objectives pursued since its invention is to achieve energy generation during day and night.

The ground under the power plant plays an important role on the energy balance and heat transfer, due to its natural behavior as a heat storage system.

An experimental model was designed in Holley Kerbala city (Iraq), which consisted of a 3m collector radius with 8ᴼ collector inclination angle and a 6m height of chimney been constructed and collector periphery opening height 3cm.

Three kinds of grounds was studied in this work: sand, mixed from sand and pebble and the third is black pebble.

The results show that the highest airflow temperature inside the chimney reached was 66.8Co when using the black pebbles basement.

The maximum basement temperature measured was 81.6Co for the mixed basement.

Also, the highest temperature difference reached was 23.2Co for the same ground that have good performance during day light compared with pebble basement that have more energy saving in night.