Solar chimney power plant with heat storage analysis in the south region of Algeria

The present work is dedicated to fluid flow analysis due to natural convection heat transfer in solar chimney power plants. It is related to a numerical simulation study using Saturne and Syrthes open access codes. Four configurations of Solar Chimney Power Plants (SCPP) have been analysed. In the first one, we have considered the ground beneath the collector as a storage system. In the second one, the storage system is composed of the ground and tubes filled with water covering the surface of the collector. In the third and the fourth configuration, we keep the same previous configurations except for the junction, at the outlet of the collector and the inlet of the chimney, where we consider the junction of pipe diffuser form. The concept of entropy minimization is investigated and numerical predictions of global entropy generation rates are performed. Results of entropy generation analysis are achieved by solving the entropy generation equation based on velocity and temperature data. The best configuration giving the minimum of entropy generation is then determined.