Simulation of parabolic trough solar thermal generation with organic rankine cycle

A typical parabolic trough solar thermal generation with organic rankine cycle model has been developed using the software TRNSYS in this paper. Meteorological data of city Xi'an is used for the model's input. Then the effects of different tracking modes, organic fluids and the mass flow rate of the cooling water on the output power and efficiency of the model are analyzed. It is shown that choosing the N-S tracking model makes the generation having a higher efficiency during the period from March to October. The efficiency of the generation using organic fluids which have a high evaporating temperature is higher than using the organic fluids which have a lower evaporating temperature under the same operating condition. There is a best mass flow rate of the cooling water which makes the generation having the most net output power under different operating condition.