Sun Chengjin, Ge Tingting, Qian Jun, Fan Lingping, Xu Lihua
The heat flux distribution on the surface of a receiver in the tower-type solar thermal power system was analyzed, while a formula to calculate the thermal efficiency of the receiver was obtained based on the heat balance equation, so as to study the effects of following factors on the receiver thermal efficiency, such as the emissivity, absorption rate, wind speed and ambient temperature, etc. In addition, the comprehensive thermoelectric efficiency was evaluated for the system at different concentrating ratios and receiver temperatures. Results show that the ambient temperature has slight influence on the thermal efficiency of the receiver, but the influence of wind speed could not be neglected. When the wind speed is more than 12 m/s, the convective heat loss would be larger than the radiative heat loss. A layer of appropriate coating may help to improve the thermal efficiency of the receiver; for the tower-type solar thermal power system with a high concentrating ratio, the thermal efficiency could be increased by about 5.0 percentage points. The comprehensive thermoelectric efficiency has a peak point for a given concentrating ratio. The research results may serve as a reference for the design of the receiver and the optimization of relevan tower-type solar thermal power systems.