Effect of heat extraction on the thermal efficiency of salt gradient solar pond

• Main Authors: Qi Wu, Hua Wang, Shukuan Xie, Liugang Zhang, Jie Wang, Zhanwei Dong, Tao Zhao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2019-09-01
• Series: Energy Exploration & Exploitation
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/0144598718795495

In this paper, the experiment simulates the salt gradient solar pond with heat extraction and that without heat extraction, setting temperature sensors in the solar pond to monitor the temperature change of each measuring point in real time, extracting heat in the low convective zone and nonconvective zone at the same time. The experimental results show that heat extraction can improve the heat storage capacity of solar pond. The heat storage of solar pond with heat extraction is 40.3% more than that without heat extraction according to the experimental results. The heat extraction can increase the overall thermal efficiency of the solar pond; the efficiency of solar pond with heat extraction and that without heat extraction is 22.2 and 28.7%, respectively.