CSP plant combined with natural gas

Dear,
I am working in CSP empiric model in SAM and I would like to analize the performance of a plant using TES (molten salt) and natural gas to increase generated energy.
The problem I have is that I don’t know how to do to model gas production and limit the energy generated with gas to the 15% of the total production.
I would appreciate If you could help me in this issue.
Thanks in advance.

kika

Dear Kika,

You can use the fossil backup inputs to model a parabolic trough system with a natural gas boiler that provides heat to supplement solar heat. You cannot explicitly set the boiler's output as a percentage of the total, but you can run several simulations with different fossil fill fractions until the adjust the boiler inputs until the boiler output is close to the value you desire.

For the empirical trough model, set the fossil fill fraction on the Thermal Storage page, and use the annual fuel usage output as a measure of the fossil backup system's energy production. The boiler efficiency is an input on the Power Block page. For a more detailed analysis, you can use the hourly fossil thermal power produced output.

Best regards,
Paul.

Thanks a lot Paul for your quick response