Process Heat Generation with Parabolic Trough Collectors for a Vegetables Preservation Industry in Southern Spain

Abstract

In the present work the use of a parabolic trough solar plant to generate process heat steam for a food processing application is studied. The food processing industry, devoted to vegetables preservation by thermal treatment and canning, is located in the Southern Spain region and demands saturated steam at 7 bar with an total annual consumption of 148MWh. The base solar plant configuration analyzed consists on a parabolic trough solar field, thermally stratified energy storage, and a steam generator (unfired boiler). The influence of the main operational variables of the solar plant are studied, namely the solar field outlet temperature and the steam generator return temperature to assess its influence in the main energy based design indicators of the plant. Furthermore the possibility of including a pre-heating heat exchanger before the steam generator is also evaluated. The obtained results of this study show the suitability of changing the present energy input scheme of this industry.