High performance integrated solar combined cycles with minimum modifications to the combined cycle power plant design

The integration of solar energy into natural gas combined cycles has been successfully demonstrated in several integrated solar combined cycles since the beginning of this decade in many countries. There are many motivations that drive investments on integrated solar combined cycles which are primarily the repowering of existing power plants, the compliance with more severe environmental laws on emissions and the mitigation of risks associated with large solar projects. Integrated solar combined cycles are usually developed as brownfield facilities by retrofitting existing natural gas combined cycles and keeping the existing equipment to minimize costs. In this work a detailed off-design model of a 390MWe three pressure level natural gas combined cycle is built to evaluate different integration schemes of solar energy which either keep the equipment of the combined cycle unchanged or include new equipment (steam turbine, heat recovery steam generator). Both power boosting and fuel saving operation strategies are analyzed in the search for the highest annual efficiency and solar share. Results show that the maximum incremental power output from solar at design solar irradiance is limited to 19MWe without modifications to the existing equipment. Higher values are attainable only including a larger steam turbine. High solar radiation-to-electrical efficiencies in the range 24–29% can be achieved in the integrated solar combined cycle depending on solar share and extension of tube banks in the heat recovery steam generator. Compared to power boosting, the fuel saving strategy shows lower thermal efficiencies of the integrated solar combined cycle due to the efficiency drop of gas turbine at reduced loads. Without modifications to the existing equipment the maximum solar share of the total generated electricity is only about 1%.