A solar thermal power plant that intends to combine the advantages of synthetic oil based PTC field
and DSG of LFR field has been designed and built. The PTC solar field supplies about 60% of the
required heat, while the LFR solar field supplies the balance 40% of the required heat at design condition.
The control philosophy of the plant incorporates the combined effect of the two solar fields under given
solar radiation and ambient conditions to effect a continuous power generation from the turbine-generator
unit during the sunshine hours of the day using HTF storage. These would be checked and validated after
the plant is commissioned. Quasi-steady-state solar thermal simulator developed as a part of the project
can be used for preliminary sizing, heat balance design, off-design simulations and performance
evaluation of a small subset of a complete plant or a complete plant. The difference between DNI and
power output is higher in the month of November due to cosine effect and that in the month of June is due to part load effect of the turbine. The plant will produce about 1365 MWh of annual energy output at a
capacity factor of 15.6%. The plant can deliver a maximum output of 232.2 MWh in the month of April
and a minimum output of 122.5 MWh in the month of June. Such results can be used to plan the operation
and devise the appropriate control strategy of the power plant. The simulation results will be validated
with actual plant data, after commissioning