Study of Solar Radiation Factor for the Parabolic Trough Solar Thermal Power Plant in Typical Chinese Sites

This paper studied the effect radiation of the parabolic trough concentrator thoroughly, and it was revealed that Incident Direct Insolation (IDR) should be used to evaluate the solar resource for locating a PTSTP plant, instead of Direct Normal Insolation (DNI), for it takes latitude into consideration. Lhasa, with latitude of 29.43, and Naiman, with latitude of 43.47, were studied respectively, and the results indicates that Lhasa´s annual DNI level is 14.33% higher than IDR, while it is 22.43 higher in Naiman. Also performance of a 35MW-parabolic trough solar power plant was simulated for 9 typical locations in China, and the results verified the advantage of IDR to DNI as a plant siting factor.