Thermal performance analysis of solar steam aided coal-fired power generation

This paper proposes that using solar steam to be the auxiliary thermal source of power plants when the solar radiation reaches a specified level. Taking a 600 MW coal-fired supercritical unit for example. The results show that, by using solar steam as the auxiliary heat source, unit absolute efficiency will increase from 49.259% to 49.971%,thermal efficiency will increase from 47.786% to 48.501%, heat consumption rate will decreases from 7648.27kJ/(kW.h) to 7535.57 kJ/(kW.h), coal heat consumption rate will decreases from 283.82g/(kW.h) to 279.64 g/(kW.h). The whole unit thermal performance will be improved.