For the CSP Physical Parabolic Trough Model, I wanted to clarify my understanding of two outputs.
The hourly data I want to extract is the solar thermal power produced from the solar field, on the power cycle side.
Field thermal power produced is the thermal power in the HTF at the end of the solar field.
Cycle thermal power input is the total thermal power into the power cycle.
My present understanding is that if the auxiliary boiler is turned off (fossil fill fraction 0 for all dispatch periods), and TES capacity is set to zero, then the cycle thermal power input is the thermal power from solar.
The only limitations that prevents this value from being applied to other solar steam integration applications are the startup operation limitations that the power cycle has on plant startup: minimum turbine operation and thermal fraction needed for startup.
So, if I change all limiting operation fields to zero, I should get the effect of the heat exchanger between the HTF thermal power and the cycle thermal power input from solar. The problem is when I do this, the two columns become essentially the same. See attached screen snip. The difference of the two columns' annual sum is 0.033%.
So this leads me to believe I've misunderstood the model somewhere.
Thanks,
Ming Xu
