Energy Conversion and Management 86 (2014) 622633

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy Conversion and Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

Techno-economic performance analysis of parabolic trough collector

in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
Esmail M.A. Mokheimer , Yousef N. Dabwan, Mohamed A. Habib, Syed A.M. Said, Fahad A. Al-Sulaiman
Mechanical Engineering Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 27 December 2013
Accepted 10 June 2014

Keywords:
Optical efciency of PTC
Parabolic trough collector
Solar energy
Thermal efciency of PTC
Thermo-economic analysis

a b s t r a c t
The main criteria to assess a new solar thermal power plant are its performance and cost. Therefore, there
is a need to present to the open literature a detailed modeling procedure and cost analyses to help
researchers, engineers, and decision makers. The main objectives of this work are to develop a code
and to evaluate the optical and thermal efciencies of parabolic trough collectors (PTCs) solar eld considering average hourly, daily, monthly, or annually averaged weather data; in addition to detailed cost
analysis of the solar eld. In this regard, a computer simulation code was developed using Engineering
Equations Solver (EES). This simulation code was validated against Thermoex code and data previously
published in the public literature, and excellent agreements ware observed. The types of the PTC considered in the simulation are EuroTrough solar collector (ET-100) and for LUZ solar collector LS-3. The present study revealed that the maximum optical efciency that can be reached in Dhahran is 73.5%, whereas
the minimum optical efciency is 61%. This study showed also that the specic cost for a PTC eld per
unit aperture area and the specic cost of different mechanical works can be cut by about 46% and
48% at 10 hectare and by about 72% and 75% at 160 hectare, respectively, compared to that at 2.8 hectare.
On the other hand, the specic civil costs remain constant independent of the plant size. It was found that
the ratio of the cost of the PTC to the solar eld area decreases signicantly as the solar eld size
increases. This decrement is very signicant until the solar eld size reaches 60 hectare and then the
slope of the decrement is becoming insignicant. Therefore, it is recommended to have a solar eld size
of 60 hectare or larger.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The main four concentrating solar thermal power technologies
are parabolic trough collectors, Fresnel reector, solar tower, and
dishes. Parabolic trough collector (PTC) currently represents the
most mature technology for solar thermal power production
among them. The rst commercial power plant using PTC technology was built in 1984 in California. Currently, several power plants
under operation and many others under construction. However,
there is no study reported the optical and thermal efciencies or
the economics of using parabolic troughs under Saudi weather
conditions where solar energy is abundant. Thus, parabolic trough
CSP technology has been selected for the present thermo-economic
study. Performance and cost analyses are the two main criteria in
selecting a power plant technology type and therefore there is a
Corresponding author. Address: Mechanical Engineering Department, King
Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM), P.O. Box: 279, Dhahran 31261,
Saudi Arabia.
E-mail address: esmailm@kfupm.edu.sa (E.M.A. Mokheimer).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2014.06.023
0196-8904/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

need to have clear method that shows how to model and analyze
a plant. Given the importance of the heat transfer analysis in PTC
system, since the 1970s a number of models has been proposed.
Edenburn [1] predicted the efciency of a parabolic trough collector by using an analytical heat transfer model for evacuated and
non-evacuated cases. The results showed good agreement with
measured data obtained from Sandia National Laboratories (SNL)
collector test facility [2]. Clark [3] identied and analyzed the
effects of design and manufacturing factors that inuenced the
thermal and economic performance of PTC. Dudley et al. [4] developed an analytical model of SEGS LS-2 parabolic trough collector.
The thermal loss model for the heat collection element (HCE)
was one-dimensional and steady-state heat transfer model based
on thermal resistance analysis. This model was validated with
experimental data collected by SNL[2] for two types of receiver
selective coatings combined with three different receiver congurations; glass envelope with either vacuum or air in the receiver
annulus, and glass envelope removed from the receiver. The results
showed a reasonable agreement between the theoretical and
experimental heat losses. Thomas and Thomas [5] developed a

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623

Nomenclature
ANI
Aa
Ar
Air
CP
Dci
Dco
Di
DNI
Do
E
fend loss

aperture normal irradiance

aperture area
receiver area
inside cross sectional area of the absorber tube
specic heat
inner diameter of glass envelope
outer diameter of glass envelope
inner diameter of absorber tube
direct normal irradiance
outer diameter of absorber tube
equation time
performance factor that accounts for losses from ends of
heat collector element
fclean
cleanliness factor
frow shadow performance factor that accounts for mutual shading
of parallel collector rows during early morning and late
evening
F0
collector efciency factor
F00
collector ow factor
f2
friction factor for the inner surface of the absorber pipe
fn
focal length of the collectors
FR
collector heat removal factor
h
heat transfer coefcient inside tube
hw
wind heat transfer coefcient
IAM
incidence angle modier
kc
thermal conductivity of the glass envelope
L
collector length
Lloc
the longitude of the location of the collector site
Lst
standard meridian for the local time zone
Lspace
distance between two parallel collectors
LSCA
length of a single solar collector
n
the day number of the year
Pr
Prandtl number
Qabs
solar radiation absorbed by the receiver tubes
Qu
net energy transferred to the uid in receiver tubes

set of curve-tting equations based on a numerical heat transfer

model for the heat losses in the HCE of a PTC for different properties of the HCE and weather conditions. A detailed heat transfer
model for the HCE of PTC was developed by Forristall [6]. Both
one- and two-dimensional analyses were used in the code. This
model was used to determine the thermal performance of parabolic trough collectors under different operating conditions.
It is known that the collector outlet temperature is mainly
affected by changes in the sun intensity, by the collector inlet
temperature, and by the volume ow rate of the HTF. Stuetzle [7]
proposed an unsteady state analysis of HCE of PTC to calculate
the collector eld outlet temperature. Their results showed good
agreement with measured outlet temperatures. Valladares and
Velsquez [8] developed a detailed numerical model for a singlepass and double-pass solar parabolic trough collector. The singlepass solar device numerical model has been validated with
experimental data obtained by SNL. Their results showed that the
proposed double-pass could enhance the thermal efciency compared with the single-pass. Recently, three dimensional heat transfer analysis of PTC system was performed by combining the Monte
Carlo Ray Trace Method (MCRT) and CFD analysis [9,10]. The
results indicated that the ange (support bracket) and bellow
under non-vacuum conditions bring a high conductive heat loss.
Lobn et al. [11] performed CFD simulation of parabolic trough
solar collector considering steam as a heat transfer uid using
STAR-CCM+ code. However, such a code does not consider several
parameters that are function of solar time variation. In a different

r
Ta
Ti
Tco
Tci
T
Tfm
Toi
Tsky
UL
Uo
Vf
Wa

local mirror radius

ambient temperature
absorber inner surface temperature
outer glass envelope temperature
inner temperature of glass envelope
uid temperature at inlet of receiver
main uid temperature
uid temperature at outlet of receiver.
sky temperature
receiver loss coefcient based on the receiver outside
surface area
receiver overall heat transfer coefcient based on the
receiver outside tube diameter
velocity of HTF inside the tube
parabolas aperture width

Greek letters
ac
absorptance of the absorber surface coating
(sac)n
the effective product of s and ac
c
intercept factor
r
StefanBoltzman constant.

latitude location of the solar eld.

l
absolute viscosity for heat transfer uid.
gnominal nominal optical efciency
gopt
optical efciency
gth,collector thermal collector efciency
h
angle of incidence
hz
zenith angle
qcl
clean mirror reectivity
qf
density for heat transfer uid
s
transmittance of the glass envelope
eci
emittance of glass envelope inner surface
eco
emittance of glass envelope outer surface
er
emittance of the receiver

study, Ceylan and Ergun [12] conducted thermodynamic analysis

of temperature controlled parabolic trough collector. Nevertheless,
their analysis did not consider the optical performance and solar
time variation. Ouagued et al. [13] presented a thermal model of
parabolic trough solar collector considering Algeria weather conditions. However, they have ignored some of the optical performance
parameters and their study did not consider any cost analysis.
It can be noticed from the literature review that there is no
detailed thermal model that presents the detailed performance of
the PTC considering complete set of variables that affect the performance. The model developed in this study considers several key
PTC performance parameters, such as:











angle of incidence and angle of incidence modier,

heat end losses of the heat collector element,
cleanliness factor, row shadowing,
day number of the year,
zenith angle,
focal length of the collectors,
aperture normal irradiance,
collector ow factor,
velocity of the Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF) inside the tube, and
friction factor of the absorber inner surface.

Therefore, the developed model considers a complete modeling

of PTC and it will be a key for researchers and engineers in the area.
The present model was developed in EES and validated with

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E.M.A. Mokheimer et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 86 (2014) 622633

Thermoex. It is worth mentioning here that Thermoex + PEACE

software has a model library containing all components necessary
for the simulation of conventional power plants. This library has
been recently extended to include all relevant solar components
models of the three CSP technologies. These three CSP technologies
are solar tower, parabolic trough collectors, and linear Fresnel
reectors. The Thermoex parabolic trough model has been used
to validate the parabolic trough simulation model developed during the present work.
Furthermore, in this study detailed cost analysis versus solar
eld size has been carried out and validated with literature as discussed later. The cost analysis considers installation cost, installed
cost of mechanical works, installed cost of civil work, structure,
drivers and position system cost per aperture area, receiver cost
per unit length, reector cost per unit aperture area, headers and
piping per receiver length, mechanical labor cost per aperture area,
among others. The selected city for simulation is Dhahran, Saudi
Arabia, which is located in MENA region where more than
35 GW of solar thermal power is planned in the upcoming
25 years; and therefore, this add further value to this study, especially for engineers and decision makers. The analysis considers
annual, monthly, and hourly weather conditions of Dhahran. The
PTC type considered in the simulation are Euro Trough solar collector (ET-100) and for LUZ solar collector LS-3, which are relatively
two new designs that have implemented in new PTC solar thermal
power plants.
2. System description
A PTC system consists of curved mirrors, a receiver, steel structure, and a tracking system. The curved mirrors are reecting and
concentrating the solar radiation into an absorber tube (receiver)
which is located in the focal line of the collector. The receiver consists of a special tube through which a heat transfer uid (HTF) is
owing heated up to about 400 C. When the geometry and thermal properties of PTC are known, the thermal performance and
energy gained by the HTF can be calculated under different congurations and weather conditions. The heat transfer analysis of PTC
is essential for the calculation of thermal losses and sizing of the
solar eld during initial design.
To understand how the model of parabolic trough collector
(PTC) works, a brief description of the collector is provided in this
section. A schematic cross section of the PTC is shown in Fig. 1. The
arc shape of PTC as shown in Fig. 1 is selected because of its focusing properties. The axis is the line that passes through the vertex
and the focal point. The rim angle is measured from the axis to
the line connecting the focus to the rim (edge) of the parabola.
The aperture area is the distance from rim to rim multiplied by
the reective length of the reector. Three characteristic dimensions are labeled in this diagram. fn is the parabolas focal length.

B is the parabolas depth. Wa is the parabolas aperture width.

This collector shape focuses incoming solar radiation that is parallel to the axis and normal to the aperture to the focal point.
To maximize energy capture, the solar collector trough is
rotated by a drive system so it faces the sun as much as possible.
The tracking system operates to keep the axis coplanar with the
suns central ray. Collector troughs are often aligned along meridians and rotate so they can track the sun from sunrise to sunset.
However, other orientations are used, including perpendicular to
meridians to more evenly balance the amount of captured energy
throughout the year.
The heat collection element (HCE) is carefully aligned with the
parabolic troughs focal line, which shown as a point in the Fig. 1. A
cross section of the HCE is shown in Fig. 2. It consists of the receiver
tube that carrying the uid being heated. The receiver tube is
coated with an optically selective coating so it absorbs much of
the incident solar radiation while emitting only a small amount
of thermal radiation.
The receiver tube is surrounded by a glass envelope to reduce
heat losses from the receiver tube. The envelope should be high
transparent to incoming solar radiation and high opaque to outgoing thermal radiation emitted from wall of the tube. The annulus
between receiver tube and the envelope is evacuated to virtually
eliminate convective heat transfer between the tube and envelope.
Solar radiation consists of direct and indirect radiations. Concentrating collectors only focus direct normal irradiance (DNI),
which is the radiation streaming directly from the sun without
having been scattered by atmosphere. Indirect (diffuse) irradiance
cannot be focused by these collectors. Furthermore, PTC can only
focus the component of DNI normal to the aperture, which is called
aperture normal irradiance (ANI). One can compute ANI from the
DNI based on the collectors orientation on the earth; it is tilted
away from horizontal, and the sun position in the sky. Assume that
the collector is tracking the sun in one direction to makes the
geometry straightforward that is because the sun central ray and
the parabolas axis are coplanar.
The performance parameters of the PTC are listed as follows:
i. Concentration ratio: ratio of the aperture area to the receiver
area. It gives indication of the maximum temperature produced by the collector.
ii. Optical efciency; which gives information of the fraction of
total solar energy incident on collector area absorbed by the
absorber.
iii. Thermal efciency; which gives information of the fraction
of total energy incident on the collector area that we get in
the form of heat from the collector.
The thermal efciency of the parabolic trough solar collector
system depends on the optical efciency of the system. Having

Fig. 1. A schematic cross section of the parabolic trough collector.

E.M.A. Mokheimer et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 86 (2014) 622633

625

the absorbed energy is lost to the surroundings by radiation, convection, and conduction.
The absorbed radiation, Qabs, is dened as the incidence solar
energy on the collector that is actually absorbed by the heat transfer uid through the HCE. The absorbed radiation is a fraction of
the direct normal irradiance that is adjusted due to the effects of
incidence angle, row shading, solar eld availability, collector
cleanliness, the collector eld, and HCE surface properties. The
gross energy absorbed by the receiver tube is as follows:

Q abs gopt  ANI

Fig. 2. A cross section of the heat collection element (HCE).

larger optical efciency of the reector results in improvement of

the thermal efciency and hence the overall performance of the
system is improved.
3. Mathematical modelling
The incident solar radiation uctuates hourly and seasonally. As
a result, the aperture normal irradiance (ANI) changes also with
time. On the other hand, not all ANI is absorbed by the receiver
tube due to the optical losses. The surfaces of the reector, the
glass envelope, and the tube itself are not optically perfect. The
optical efciency of the collector accounts for losses at these surfaces. The optical efciency is a characteristic of the reector/
absorber system and depends on the materials, coating, and alignment. Fig. 3 shows the different parameters that affect the optical
efciency of the parabolic solar collector.
The nominal design point of the collector optical efciency
characterizes the collectors ability to focus incoming direct (beam)
radiation on the receiver tube. This value applies when the suns
central rays are perpendicular to the collector aperture. Corrections
to this efciency are applied when the central rays strikes the aperture at other angles. The corrected optical efciency dictates the
percentage of ANI that is absorbed by the receiver tube. Some of

where Qabs is the solar radiation absorbed by the receiver tubes [W/
m2], gopt is optical efciency, and ANI is aperture normal irradiance
(W/m2) that can be calculated by:

ANI DNI  cosh

DNI is the direct normal irradiance (W/m2), h is angle of incidence

(deg.).
The optical efciency could be calculated by the following
equation:

gopt gnominal  IAM  fend loss  fclean  fraw shadow

where gnominal is the nominal optical efciency, IAM is incidence

angle modier, fend loss is performance factor that accounts for losses
from the ends of the heat collector element; it is also called intercept factor (fraction of the reected radiation that is not intercepted
by the receiver). It happens at the end portion of HCE, where there is
no focused radiation on that portion as shown in Fig. 4 and Eq. (14),
fclean is cleanliness factor, and frowshadow is performance factor that
considers the mutual shading of parallel collector rows during early
morning and late evening.
The nominal efciency (gnominal) can be expressed as

gnominal qcl  saC n  c

where qcl is the clean mirror reectivity, s is transmittance of the

glass envelope, ac is absorptance of the absorber surface coating,

Fig. 3. Parameters affecting optical efciency.

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E.M.A. Mokheimer et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 86 (2014) 622633

Fig. 4. End losses from heat collector element.

and (saC)n is the effective product of s and ac. A modied value of

(sac)n is recommended by Stuetzle [7] as 1.01(sac).
The nominal optical efciency depends on selected solar collector type. There are currently several collector types for concentrated solar power plants applications that have been
successfully tested under real operating conditions. For example,
the Luz International Ltd. (Luz) developed and designed three parabolic trough collectors, called LS-1, LS-2 and LS-3 [14]. These collectors were installed in solar electric generating plants. The other
collector is EuroTrough collector, which is an improved model of
the analysis of several different collector structures and its characteristics are given in [15].
Only the direct normal irradiance can be focused by linear concentrated solar collectors. The angle between the direct normal
irradiance (DNI) on a surface and the plane normal to that surface
is called the angle of incidence (h). The angle of incidence varies
over the whole day as well as throughout the year. As a result,
the performance of the solar collector is heavily inuenced by this
variation. The angle of incidence (h) for a parabolic solar collector
rotating about a horizontal northsouth axis with continuous
adjustment to minimize the angle of incidence, so that more DNI
is focused on the HCE, can be calculated by the following equation
[16]:
2

1=2

cosh cos2 hz cos2 d sin x

On the right hand side of this equation, there are three angles,
which are namely, the declination angle (d), the angular hour
(x), and the zenith angle (hz). Expressions for calculating these
angles can be found in [16].
As mentioned earlier, the energy absorbed in the solar receiver
is affected by the optical properties and imperfections of the solar
collector ensemble. The optical efciency of a PTC eld (gopt) can be
dened as the fraction of the direct solar irradiance incident on the
aperture of the collector which is absorbed at the surface of the
HCE. Substituting Eq. (4) into Eq. (3), one can get:

gopt qcl  sac n  c  IAM  frow shadow  fend loss  fclean

According to Eq. (6), the solar collector/receiver system optical

efciency considers mirror reectivity, the transmittance of the
receiver glass envelope, the absorptance of the absorber surface
coating, the intercept factor, the incident angle effects, the cleanliness of the mirrors, the row to row shadowing, and the receiver
end losses.
In this study, the effect of correction parameters for the parabolic solar collector assembly, mirrors and heat collection element,
are accounted the intercept factor, c, which is a fraction of the
reected radiation that is incident on the absorbing surface of
the receiver. The factors that affect the intercept factor are [6,17
20]:

 Losses from shading of ends of heat collection element due to

bellows, shielding, and supports, c1.
 Twisting and tracking error associated with the collector type,
c2.
 Geometry accuracy of the collector mirrors, c3.
 Losses due to shading of HCE by dust on the envelope, c4.
 Miscellaneous factors to adjust for other HCE losses, c5.
Thus, the intercept factor is dened as:

i5
Y

ci

i1

where the values for ci (i = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) are given in [6,1720] as

0.974, 0971, 0.994, 0.98, 0.98, 0.96, respectively.
For a PTC system, the nominal optical efciency occurs when
the direct beam radiation is normal to the collector aperture area.
In addition to the losses due to the deviation of the angle of incidence from zero, there are other losses from the collector that
can be correlated to the angle of incidence if it is greater than 0
[16]. Hence, a factor called Incident Angle Modier (IAM) is used
when the beam radiation is not normal. The IAM is considered in
all optical and geometric losses when the incident angle is greater
than 0. The incident angle modier depends on the geometry and
the optical characteristics of the solar collector. The incident angle
modier is dened as [4,21]

IAM

gh
gnominal

The incident angle modier function is dened by:

IAM max0; IAMh

Incidence angle modier is given as an empirical formula in

term of incidence angle (h). Each specic solar collector has its formula. Table 1 [4,18,2225] lists the incident angle modier function for different solar collector types. These functions were
plotted as shown in Fig. 5.
The positioning and geometry of the collector troughs and HCEs
can introduce further losses. These losses are due to shading of parallel rows in the sunrise and sunset in addition to the end losses
from the HCE. The collectors are arranged in parallel rows, and they
track the sun during the daytime. Due to the sunrise and sunset,
row shading occurs. For example, due to the low solar altitude
angle of the sun in the morning, the eastern-most row of collectors
can receive full sun, but this row will shade all subsequent rows to
the west. As the sun rises and the collectors track the sun, this
mutual row shading effect decreases, until a critical zenith angle
is reached at which no row shading occurs. Collector rows remain
un-shaded through the middle of the day. Due to tracking of the
solar collectors to the sun at different sun positions in the morning,

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627

Table 1
Incident angle modier functions for different solar collectors.
IAM for LS-2
2

h
h
 5:369  105 cosh
[4]
1 8:84  104 cosh

IAM for IST

2

h
h
1 3:178  104 cosh
 3:985  105 cosh
[22]

IAM for LS-3

1  2:2307  104 h  1:1  104 h2 3:18596  106 h3  4:85509  108 h4
[18,23]
IAM for ET-100
2

h
h
 2:859621  105 cosh
[24,25]
1  5:25097  104 cosh

h: incident angle in degrees.

Fig. 6. Parabola geometry for a rim angle of hr [16,26].

Lippke [27] proposed that r = fn which found acceptance in the

literature [16,17]. This proposed equation leads to minimum end
losses for certain geometric conguration. A previous work developed by Gaul and Rabl [21] suggested the use of an average value
of r. This value was used in this study and it is dened as:

r fn 1
Fig. 5. Incident angle modiers for different parabolic trough solar collectors.

the row shading varies as the sun position changes. The shading
factor is dened as [7,17]:

frow shadow

Lspace coshz

cosh
Wa

10

where Lspace is the distance between two parallel collectors [m], Wa

is aperture width [m], and hz is zenith angle.
The shading factor equation is bounded with a minimum value
of 0 (rows are fully shaded) and a maximum value of 1 (rows are
not shaded). For optimization purpose, the following equation
can be imposed:




Lspace coshz
frow shadow min max 0:0;

; 1:0
cosh
Wa

11

In a solar collector eld, the two terminals of the absorber tube

of each collector are not illuminated by the reected solar radiation
from the mirrors. In other words, end losses take place at the ends
of the heat collection elements, where there is no focused radiation
on those portions as shown in Fig. 4. End losses depend on the solar
collector average focal length, the solar incidence angle, and the
length of solar collector. As shown in Fig. 4, the part of the receiver
that is not illuminated (z) is as follows:

Z r  tanh

12

The distance r shown in Fig. 6 can be dened as [16,26]:

x2
r fn
4f

13

The fraction of the receiver that is illuminated is:

fend loss 1 

r
LSCA

tanh

!
15

Replacing the value of r, then, the collector geometrical end

losses [18,21] can be formulated as:

"

fend loss

!
#
fn
W 2a
max 0; 1 
1
tanh
LSCA
48 fn2

16

As discussed before, collector thermal efciency includes the

effect of the collectors optical efciency, end losses (resulting from
collector geometry), and the thermal loss (from the hot receiver
tube to the surroundings). It does not include heat losses at the
inlet and exit header. If the receiver tube has zero heat loss and
there were no end losses, the solar efciency would equal the optical efciency. It should be noticed that collector thermal efciency
is a measure of the collector-only performance, independent of
installation details. Thermal performance of solar collector is characterized by the thermal efciency:

gth;collector

Qu
ANI Aa

17

Some of the absorbed energy heats the receiver tube and the
uid owing inside it. The balance is lost to the surroundings via
radiation, convection, and conduction. The wall tube radiates to
the glass envelope and the surroundings. In this model, the small
convective heat transfer from the tube to the ultra-low pressure
gases in the annulus is ignored (evacuated glass envelope). The
glass envelope loses heat to the environment by convection and
radiation. According to Ref. [16], net heat transfer to the uid in
receiver tube (Qu) is:



Ar
Q u F R  Aa Q abs   U L T i  T a
Aa

18

F 00




_  Cp
FR
Ar  U L  F 0
m

1

exp

_  Cp
m
F 0 Ar  U L  F 0

19

F0

UO
UL

20

14

where r is the local mirror radius [m], LSCA is length of a single solar
collector [m], and fn is focal length of the collectors [m].

W 2a
48fn2

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 11
Do  ln DDo
1
D
o
i
A
Uo @

U L hfi  Di
2k
0

21

the average temperature between the cover and ambient temperatures, which is dened as:

Re
Aa W a  Do  L

22

Ar A p  D o  L

23

qVDco
l

25

The wind heat transfer coefcient is then found from:

The heat loss (Qloss) is estimated for each step using a one
dimensional heat transfer model. For each station along the tube,
one can compute a one-dimensional heat balance using energy balance with a gray body radiative exchange from the receiver tube to
the glass envelope, and a combined radiative and convective heat
losses from the glass envelope to the environment. The heat
absorbed by the uid conducts through the tube wall and heats
the uid by convection heat transfer from the inner wall of the
absorber tube to the bulk uid.
Fig. 7 depicts the cross section at a location along the tube. The
ambient temperature is the same as other site temperature. The
external heat transfer coefcient is assumed constant along the
tube length; also the radiative properties of the surfaces are
assumed constants. The mathematical code computes the thermal
conductivity of the tube based on its material and its local temperature. The mathematical code computes internal heat transfer
coefcient based on the uid properties at the local uid conditions. Considering Fig. 7 the heat losses between the receiver and
the ambient are discussed next.
First of all, one needs to calculate heat losses between glass
envelope and environment. As stated above, the heat will transfer
from the glass envelope to the atmosphere by convection and radiation. The convection will be either forced or natural, depending on
whether there is wind or not. Radiation heat loss occurs due to the
temperature difference between the glass envelope and sky. The
total heat losses between glass envelope and environment can be
found using the following equation [16]:

Q loss pDco Lhw T co  T a pDco Lco rT 4co  T 4sky

24

where sky temperature equal ambient temperature 5 C, and StefanBoltzmann constant (r) equal 5.67  108 [16].
Where hw is the convective heat transfer coefcient between
the receiver outer cover tube and the ambient air. To estimate
the wind heat transfer coefcient, it is necessary to nd Reynolds
number of the wind in which the physical properties depends on

hw

Nuout  k
Dco

26

For ow of air across a single tube in an outdoor environment,

the equations recommended by Ref. [16] have been used.

Nuout 0:40 0:54Re0:52 For 0:1 < Re < 1000

27

Nuout 0:30Re0:6 For 1000 < Re < 50; 000

28

To solve the above set of equations, ones usually use an iterative

procedure. At the beginning, one needs to assume the cover temperature (Tco), which will be much closer to the ambient temperature than the receiver temperature. The inner cover temperature
can be found by calculating the conduction heat transfer between
the outer and the inner surface of the glass envelope, where the
(Qloss) will be calculated using Eq. (29).

Q loss

2pkc LT ci  T co
 
ln DDcoci

29

The heat loss by radiation from the receiver and inner surface of
the glass envelope is

Q loss

pDr LrT 4r  T4ci

1

r

1rci

Dr
Dci

30

The heat losses in Eqs. 24, 29, and 30 are equal. If they do not
equal, it is necessary to make another guess of the outside cover
temperature (Tco) till the solution converge. Then one can calculate
UL from the following equation:

Q loss U L  Ar T r  T a

31

Reynolds number for heat transfer element is given by the following equation:

ReHTF

qf VDir 4  m_ f

lf
p  Air

Fig. 7. Temperature and heat ow from heat collection element.

32

E.M.A. Mokheimer et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 86 (2014) 622633

Air

p
4

 D2ir

33

In order to calculate Reynolds number for the ow inside the

tube, properties of HTF such as absolute viscosity, and density
should be known. Hence, these properties are given at the mean
uid temperature (Tfm). By assuming the value of the temperature
at the outlet of receiver (Tfo), the mean uid temperature can be
calculated by the following equation:

T fm

T fo T fi
2

34

In order to calculate Nusselt number inside the tube, properties

of HTF are taken at the mean uid temperature (Tfm). Value of Nusselt number depends on status of uid ow, laminar or turbulent.
When Reynolds number (Re) is lower than 2300, the laminar
option is selected and the Nusselt number will be constant. For
ow inside the tube, the value will be 4.36 [16]. When Reynolds
number (Re) is greater than 2300, the Nusselt number is given by
the following equation [28]:

Nuinside tube

 0:11
 Re  10000  Pr1
Pr1
 2  3

Pr2
f2
2
1 12:7  8  Pr1  1
f2
8

35

f2 is the Friction factor for the inner surface of the absorber pipe, Pr1
is Prandtl number evaluated at the HTF inlet temperature, (T), Pr2 is
Prandtl number evaluated at the absorber inner surface temperature (Ti), where (Ti) can be assumed as a rst guess as: Ti = Tfm + 2
and Tfm is mean uid temperature.
After determining the value of the Nusselt number, heat transfer coefcient (hinside tube) can be calculated by the following
equation:

hinside tube

Nuinside tube  kf
Dir

36

where (kf) is thermal conductivity of heat transfer uid, also it

should be found at the mean uid temperature (Tfm).
4. Results and discussion
Performance and cost analysis are the two major criteria in
assessing a solar thermal system. The validation and results of
optical and thermal efciencies of the parabolic trough solar collector and its detailed cost analysis are discussed hereunder. The
analysis considers the variation of the solar radiation on hourly,
daily and monthly average basis. Furthermore, detailed cost analyses versus solar eld size are presented and discussed.
4.1. Validation and performance results
An EES code has been developed to solve the set of equations
listed in Section 3 above in order to estimate the optical and thermal efciency of parabolic troughs under any weather and operating conditions. In the present work, the optical and thermal
efciency of the parabolic trough has been calculated under Dhahran, Saudi Arabia weather conditions. The results obtained by the
presently developed EES code have been rstly validated against
results from the literature and against those obtained by Thermoex software. In this regard, the performance of LS-3 parabolic
trough has been simulated under Mojave desert, California (Latitudes of 35.4 and longitude of 115.58) and under Dhahran, Saudi
Arabia (Latitude 26.267/Longitude 50.15) weather conditions.
The results of this simulation are presented in Fig. 8(a) for a cleanliness factor of 1 (clean surface). The results shows that the maximum optical efciency predicted under Mojave desert weather
condition is 77.39% which is very close the corresponding experi-

629

mentally measured value of 77% as reported by [14]. The deviation

is about 0.5%, which reects the validity of the program. It is worth
reporting here that the deviation between the optical efciency of
LS3 parabolic trough under Mojave desert and Dhahran weather
conditions is mainly attributed to the change of the clearance
index which is site dependent as shown in Fig. 8(b). The large deviation between the clearance index at Mojave desert, California,
from that at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia in winter months lead to a proportional larger deviation between the optical efciency of the parabolic trough LS-3 collector at the two locations compared to the
deviation during summer months. On the other hand, the parabolic
trough models developed in Thermoex models are based on manufacturer data [29]. Thus, the hourly, daily and monthly performance of the parabolic trough estimated by the presently
developed EES code is validated against those predicted using
Thermoex software under Dhahran, Saudi Arabia weather conditions. For fair validation, we carried out a comparative analysis of
the variation of the optical and thermal efciency of ET-100 parabolic trough estimated using the presently developed EES code and
those estimated using Thermoex software. The comparison of
hourly variation of the optical efciency is shown in Fig. 8 while
the hourly variation of the thermal efciency is depicted in Fig. 9
for two typical months of the year, (a) represents summer and
(b) represents winter. These two gures clearly show excellent
agreement between the results of our presently developed EES
code and that of Thermoex software which is originally validated
with manufacturer data [29].
These results presented in Figs. 9 and 10, reveal that the hourly
variations of optical and thermal efciencies in the winter months
are more pronounced than the variations in the summer months.
Moreover, the optical and thermal efciencies of the summer
months start from lower values at early hours in the morning
and increases to reach the maximum values that will slightly
decrease at noon time. On the other hand, the optical and thermal
efciencies of the winter months start from maximum values in
early morning and decrease to reach the lowest values at noon
time.
Results of the monthly-averaged peak optical and thermal efciencies for Euro Trough solar collector (ET-100) under weather
data of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia as obtained by the presently developed EES code and those obtained by Thermoex software are not
presented here due to space limitation. In general, the monthlyaveraged peak optical and thermal efciencies obtained by EES
code showed excellent agreements (almost matching) with those
obtained by THERMOFLEX during all months of the year. The thermal efciency of the parabolic trough solar collector system
depends mainly on the optical efciency of the system. The higher
the optical efciency of the reector is, the better is the thermal
efciency and hence the overall performance of the system. These
results revealed that the optical efciency varies between 65% to
about 73.5% while the thermal efciency varied between a minimum of 60% to about 71%. The high efciencies are in summer
months (April to August) under Dhahran, Saudi Arabia weather
conditions and cleanliness factor of 0.95.
Having validated our EES code, we have used it to carry out performance analysis of different parabolic troughs under Dhahran,
Saudi Arabia weather conditions. Fig. 11 depicts the variation of
the daily-averaged optical efciency of the EuroTrough solar collector ET-100 and LS-3 parabolic troughs over a year. As shown,
the optical efciency for ET-100 is better than that for LS-3, especially during a winter session. The difference between the two efciencies comes from incidence angle modier, where the incidence
angle modier for ET-100 is better than that for LS-3. The EES code
has been used for further thermo-economic analysis and assessment of parabolic trough systems under Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
weather conditions as outlined hereunder.

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E.M.A. Mokheimer et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 86 (2014) 622633

(a)

(b)

Fig. 8. (a) Monthly averaged optical efciency of LS-3 Parabolic Trough and (b) monthly averaged clearance index at Dhahran and Mojave Desert (at noon solar time using EES
for a clean collector).

Fig. 9. Comparison of hourly variation of optical efciency of ET-100 parabolic

Trough obtained by presently developed EES code and THERMOFLEX code,
Thermoex, - - - - - - - - - - EES code.

Fig. 10. Comparison of hourly variation of thermal efciency of ET-100 parabolic

Trough obtained by presently developed EES code and THERMOFLEX code,
Thermoex, - - - - - - - - - - EES code.

4.2. Cost analysis and cost reduction for parabolic trough systems
The costs of electric power generated by a line-focus solar
power system are dependent on the capital equipment cost and
the performance, as well as, the operating and maintenance costs.
Innovative plant designs can also impact delivered energy costs.
The size of the plant plays also an important role in reducing the
overall installation and operation cost. The proposed parabolic
trough system under investigation in this study was proposed to
be integrated to a gas turbine cogeneration power plant that produces 150 MWe and steam with constant ow rate of (81.44 kg/
s) at 45.88 bar output pressure. A comprehensive thermo-economic investigation of different alternatives of integrating a parabolic trough solar eld to this plant has been carried out. The
details of this comprehensive thermo-economic investigation of

Fig. 11. Daily-averaged optical efciency of PTC throughout a year under Dhahran,
Saudi Arabia weather conditions, (using EES).

the gas turbine cogeneration plant is beyond the scope of this article and can be found in [30]. The present study focuses on the
effect of solar eld size on its cost.
The capital equipment for a concentrated solar power (CSP) system involves the important solar components (solar collector eld,
heat transfer piping, and storage subsystem) and more-or-less conventional thermodynamic power cycle components. We will focus
on the solar components and address the suitable opportunities for
both cost reduction and performance improvement.
Increasing plant size is one of the easiest ways to reduce the
cost of the solar electricity from parabolic trough power plants.
Previous studies have shown that doubling the size of the plant
reduces the capital cost by approximately 1214% [3133]. For
example, Pilkington solar international report [31] has shown that
the specic cost for a parabolic trough power plant with 40 MW
can be cut by 14.5% at 80 MW and by 28% at 160 MW. A similar
analysis identied that the specic cost for a parabolic trough
power plant can be cut by 12.1% if the plant size is increased from
50 MW to 100 MW and by 20.3% if it is increased from 50 MW to
200 MW [32,33]. According to Ref. [34] (Renewable Energy Technology Characterizations), the specic cost for a parabolic trough
power plant with 10 MW can be cut by 19% at 20 MW, by 37% at
40 MW, by 48% at 80 MW, and by 61% at 160 MW.
Like any other industry, PTC business actors are not willing to
disclose internal information on the cost structures in an unlimited
way. Still, some commercial cost information has been made available, which is analyzed and referenced hereunder.
To study the cost reduction of a PTC as solar eld size increases,
a simple solar thermal plant has been used. This plant has a parabolic solar eld, one pump, one water supply, and process output.

E.M.A. Mokheimer et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 86 (2014) 622633

Steam output from this plant was considered to have a constant

ow rate of (81.44 kg/s) at 45.88 bar output pressure, but the output temperature was changing during increasing solar eld size.
The solar eld area of the thermal plant (under study) varies from
2.8 hectare to 160 hectare.
One can increase the solar eld size by increasing number of solar
collectors rows. The variations of total installed cost of parabolic
solar eld with solar eld size are presented in Fig. 12. The total
installed cost of parabolic solar eld involves the cost of mechanical
and civil works. As shown in Fig. 12, the cost of mechanical works is a
major contributor to the total installation cost.
The mechanical cost includes the cost of the receiver, reector,
structure and drives system, piping with headers system, and
mechanical labor. The civil cost includes the cost of foundation
material and equipment, excavation/backll material and equipment, and civil labor. The cost variations of mechanical works with
increasing solar eld size are shown in Fig. 13. On the other hand,
the cost variations of civil works with increasing solar eld size are
presented in Fig. 14.
For parabolic trough collectors, there are three important different areas: one of them is called reective area, the other one is
called aperture area, and the third one is called solar eld area
(size). The reective area is the area that is covered by shiny material on the parabolic reector surface. It is the area you would get if
you attened out the trough. Aperture area is the distance between
rim to rim multiplied by the reective length of the reector. The
solar eld area is a required area for solar collector eld (land area).
Fig. 15 shows the variation of solar collector aperture and the
reected area with the solar eld required land area (solar eld
size).
The cost per unit area is an important scale for solar collector
works. Fig. 16 demonstrates how the total installation cost per unit
area varies with solar eld size. As shown in the gure, the total
installation cost is calculated for three different unit areas, which
are reective, aperture, and land unit area. However, the most popular one is the total installed cost per unit aperture area. The total
installation cost is reduced by increasing the solar eld size; the
cost reduction is almost halved down by increasing solar eld size
from 2.8 hectare to 10 hectare. It can be observed that the cost
declines rapidly when the solar eld size increases from 10 hectare
to 60 hectare, after that the cost declination is almost gradual with
increasing the solar eld size. Therefore, it may not be recommended to consider the use of parabolic troughs for concentrated
solar power applications of small scale while it is recommended
for large scale applications where the cost per unit area of the solar
eld decrease to its minimal possible values available presently. It

Fig. 12. Variation of installation costs of PTC with solar eld size.

631

Fig. 13. Variation of installation costs of mechanical works with solar eld size (for
PTC).

Fig. 14. Variation of installation costs of civil works with solar eld size (for PTC).

is worth noting that the change in the cost per unit area of the solar
led becomes negligible beyond the solar eld size of 60 hectare.
The key components to reduce the solar eld material cost are
the support structures including tracking system, and receivers.
Fig. 17 shows the percentage of the material cost of PTC. This gure
illustrates the structure and drives systems represent about 36% of
the collector eld material cost, the receiver tubes and ttings represent about 28% of the collector eld material cost, the reector
system represents about 23% of the collector eld material cost.
The remaining percentage (13%) is for headers, piping, and miscellaneous materials and equipment cost.
As illustrated in Fig. 17, the structure and drives system represent 36% of the collector eld materials cost. This factor is examined further with the solar eld size. It was found that the
specic structure and tracking system cost per unit aperture area
with 2.8 hectares can be cut by almost 140 USD at 10 hectares
and by almost 218 USD at 160 hectares which is a signicant
reduction in the cost.
The receivers (heat collection elements) are a major contributor
to trough solar eld performance. The heat collection elements
constitute a major portion of the direct capital cost; the vacuum

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E.M.A. Mokheimer et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 86 (2014) 622633

Fig. 15. Variation of total collector area with solar eld size (for PTC).
Fig. 18. Comparison between the present study and literatures in terms of PTC
installation cost per unit reective area.

Fig. 16. Variation of installation cost per unit area with solar eld size (for PTC).

receiver cost about (200300) per m receiver length [32]. Thus,

the solar eld size increases the total receiver length increases
as. Unpresented results demonstrated how the receiver cost per
unit length varies with solar eld size. The unit length receiver cost
decreases as the solar eld size increases. The receiver unit cost is
almost halved when the solar eld size increases from 2.8 hectare
to 10 hectare (from about 1400 USD to 760 USD), then it sharply
declined by increasing the solar eld size from 10 hectare to
60 hectare, after that the declination is just incremental such that

it decreases from 408 USD/m to 352 USD/m when the solar eld
size increases from 60 hectare to 160 hectare.
The other important factor is the reector cost per unit aperture
area. According to the results of the present study, the specic
receiver cost with 2.8 hectare can be cut by about 98 USD (48%)
at 10 hectare and by about 152 USD (75%) at 160 hectare compared
to the cost at 2.8 hectare.
The variation of the headers, piping, and miscellaneous material
cost per unit receiver length with the solar eld size shows that the
specic receiver cost with 2.8 hectare can be cut by around 450
USD at 60 hectare (70%), and by around 480 USD (75%) at 160 hectare compared to the cost at 2.8 hectare. The variation of mechanical labor cost per unit aperture area also increase with the solar
eld size. It was found that the mechanical labor cost almost
halved by increasing solar eld size from 2.8 hectare to 10 hectare
(from about 450 USD to 230 USD). The unit cost continue to decline
signicantly by increase solar eld size from 10 hectare to 60 hectare. After that the declination is almost gradual from 130.6 USD/m
to 112 USD/m by increasing the solar eld size from 60 hectare to
160 hectare.
Unpresented results of the costs of civil works per unit aperture
area have been shown to be invariant with increasing solar eld
size. The civil works include foundation work (material and equipment which was found to be constant at the rate of about $ 17.5/
m2 of the aperture area); excavation/backll work (material and
equipment) that was xed at about $ 12/m2; and civil labor was
constant at about $ 18/m2. As shown, the costs of different civil
works per unit aperture area are constants when the solar eld size
is increasing.
Fig. 18 shows the comparison between the results in current
study and the results reported in [31,32,35] in terms of PTC installation cost per unit reective area. As shown, the cost per unit area
of the solar eld collector in the current study matches very well
the results from the others studies.
5. Conclusions

Fig. 17. Cost breakdown for parabolic trough collector components.

The optical and thermal efciencies of PTC have been evaluated

throughout a year under Dhahrans weather conditions. A computer simulation code was developed using EES software. This
simulation code was validated using available experimental data
and against the results obtained by THERMOFLEX code; the data
for EuroTrough solar collector (ET-100) and for LUZ solar collector
LS-3 have been considered in the simulation. Furthermore. This

E.M.A. Mokheimer et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 86 (2014) 622633

study described the typical cost structure of a PTC, and the cost
reduction of PTC as solar eld size increases. This study came to
the following conclusions:
 The variation in optical efciency in winter months is noticeably larger than that in summer months. The maximum optical
efciency that can be reached in Dhahran is 73.5%, whereas the
minimum optical efciency is 61%.
 The validation of EES code with THERMOFLEX has been conducted; the optical efciency of the PTC obtained by EES for
ET-100 solar collector showed an excellent agreement with
those obtained by THERMOFLEX code.
 The specic cost for a PTC eld per unit aperture area with
2.8 hectare can be cut by about 46% at 10 hectare and by about
72% at 160 hectare (compared with the cost at 2.8 hectare).
 The study showed that the relative contribution of the different
cost shares to the economies of scale varies with the same trend
as for the mechanical works and is constant for the civil works.
 The economy of scale can be realized in mechanical labor cost,
structure and drives system cost, receiver cost, and reector
cost in which the specic cost per unit aperture area can be
cut by about 75%.
 The specic cost of different mechanical works drops by about
48% at 10 hectare and by about 75% at 160 hectare capacity.
On the other hand, the specic civil costs remain constant,
where these cost items almost remain constant in absolute
numbers, independent of the plant size.
 Since the costs of the solar eld depend on the plant size, only
small changes can be observed regarding the labor, and the collector material, as material cost is the dominant cost fraction in
these areas.
 The PTC cost per unit area in the current study demonstrated an
excellent agreement with those results from the others studies.
is recommended.
 The study demonstrates that the cost declines rapidly when the
solar eld size increases from 10 hectare to 60 hectare, after
that the cost declination becomes gradual with increasing the
solar eld size. Therefore, it is recommended to consider the
use of parabolic troughs collectors for concentrated solar power
applications of large scale where the cost per unit area of the
solar eld reaches its minimal values.

Acknowledgment
The support of King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals
through DSR under grant # FT100022 to carry out this investigation is highly acknowledged. This work has been supported in part
by the KFUPM-MIT Research Collaboration Center through grant #
R12-CE-10.
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