Solar updraft power plant system: A brief review and a case study on a new system with radial partition walls in its collector

The solar updraft power plant system (SUPPS) is a low-temperature solar thermal system which utilizes both the buoyancy effect of hot air generated inside a greenhouse by solar radiation and the chimney effect to generate electricity without producing either greenhouse gases or hazardous waste. In this work, a brief review is presented concerning new developments in experimental setups, thermodynamic analyses, turbine, chimney, energy storage, mathematical models and CFD simulations, as well as special applications, and the effects of the ambient cross wind (ACW) on SUPPS. Then as a case study, we show the developments of three SUPPS numerical models to explore the impact of ambient cross wind on large-scale SUPPSs. Three large-scale SUPPSs with similar configurations are investigated: one with a conventional horizontal canopy; one with a familiar sloped canopy design; and one with eight radial partition walls (RPWs) uniformly distributed under the collector canopy. The models are used to evaluate the effects of ACW on the fluid flow and heat transfer processes under various environmental conditions. The velocity, pressure, and temperature contours in and out of the three plants along with the power output of the turbine are analyzed and compared. The results indicate that both the sloped canopy with a lower collector inlet and the RPWs designs are effective in improving the performance of a SUPPS by reducing the amount of heated air escaping from the collector under ACW. An added benefit is that some wind energy is partly harnessed thanks to the design of the RPWs.