Numerical design and simulation of a thermodynamic solar solution for a pilot residential building at the edge of the sun-belt region.

The present paper consists of designing, modeling, and simulating a Dish-Stirling photothermal concentrator. The developed system intends to satisfy the electrical needs of a small residential building in a coastal Algerian city located at the edge of the sun-belt region, with the perspective of moving toward small-scale sustainable agglomerations. The adopted approach consisted of two steps. At the first step, the energy balances were established at the collector, receiver, absorber, and Stirling engine, considering hydrogen as a work fluid. The energy flows were reported to the surface unit of the reflector optical plane with three variants of concentration ratios, namely 500, 1000, and 1500. The second step consisted of parametric analysis of the effects of optical, thermal, and Stirling engine properties. This approach allowed us to design a Dish Stirling system of 10.52 m in diameter, with a concentration factor of 1000, and using hydrogen as a working fluid. The parametric study revealed that the highest effect is due to the regeneration efficiency; its increase of an order of 10% induces an enhancement of the delivered power exceeding 40%. The designed system showed a good performance during April, June, July, August, and September, as compared to the site demand. It proved to reach 23 kW in July around solar noon, which is equivalent to satisfying the needs of the households by around 153%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]