Resource assessment for hybrid solar-biomass power plant and its thermodynamic evaluation in India U. Sahoo a,b , R. Kumar a,⇑ , P.C. Pant b , R. Chaudhary a a Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Delhi Technological University, Bawana Road, New Delhi 110042, India b National Institute of Solar Energy, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Govt. of India, New Delhi 110003, India article info Article history: Received 17 April 2016 Received in revised form 11 September 2016 Accepted 21 September 2016 Keywords: Solar Biomass Modeling Hybrid Efficiency Energy Exergy abstract Hybrid solar-biomass thermal power generation systems are important for continuous power generation installations which supplement each other seasonally in India. In this paper, several aspects associated with hybrid biomass-solar power generation installations such as state wise availability of biomass resources, solar direct normal irradiance (DNI) has been discussed. Month wise daily average DNI is con- sidered as 20%, 40%, 60%, and 80% and remaining heat is taken from biomass resource in the proposed hybrid plant. The thermodynamic evaluation (i.e. Energy and Exergy) of hybrid solar-biomass power plant have also been investigated. The total input energy of the proposed hybrid system is taken from the heat transfer fluid through parabolic trough collector (PTC) as per availability of solar resource and remaining from biomass to maintain the steam at superheated state of 500 °C and 60 bar and supplied to turbine at steam mass flow rate of 5 kg/s. The energy and exergy analyses of 5 MW hybrid system with series mode was carried out to identify the effects of various operating parameters like DNI, condenser pressure, turbine inlet temperatures, boiler pressure on net power output energy and exergy efficiencies. Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Biomass energy has provided sustenance to mankind through the ages and also attracting greater attention for power generation in India. Government of India recognized the potential role of bio- mass power in the Indian economy quite early and since then has been the vanguard of its promotion. If it is used as much as it is produced its benefits will include its renewable nature, wide avail- ability, carbon neutrality and the potential to provide large produc- tive employment in rural areas. As a further outcome of the carefully planned mix of policy and financial incentives introduced by the Government, capacity has been built up in the country for biomass power technologies, their operation and maintenance, management of biomass collection, manufacturing of equipment and resolving grid interfacing issues. The availability of crop resi- dues like bagasse, rice husk, coconut shells and the wood process- ing wastes inherently limit the growth of the capacity of biomass power generation (Sahoo et al., 2015). One of the major barriers confronted by the biomass power plants is a secured supply of required quality and quantity at a competitive price for sustainable operation of the plant. Now the price of biomass resources has slowly increased due to non-availability of biomass at right price in recent years (Larson, 2001). On the other hand, solar thermal power plants (STPP) do not continuously generate power due to daily & seasonal variations and low level of direct normal irradi- ance (DNI; short transients) for at least 100–150 days in a year in most of places of this country. Although STPP with storage is one of the solution to maintain required amount of heat (Casati et al., 2015; Wittmann et al., 2011) due to DNI variations or short tran- sients but difficult to store for the long duration of time for night cycle (Montes et al., 2009; Hoshi et al., 2005). Hybridization with STPP is most important for continuous generation of power for ful- filling the energy requirements. So, the choice of biomass resources is a judicious selection for hybridization with STPP for continuous power generation, which supplement with each other seasonally. Several authors investigated on hybrid solar biomass for power generation where water gets heated to saturated state through solar thermal technologies and superheated state through biomass boiler (Kaushika et al., 2005; Gordillo and Belghit, 2011; Ravaghi- Ardebili et al., 2015). Electricity production cost from hybrid solar thermal power plant is lower than that of stand-alone system (Spelling et al., 2013; Kotowicz et al., 2013) and reduction in the amount of CO 2 emitted to the atmosphere is also observed (Peterseim et al., 2013). The literature survey shows the limited focus in the area of resource assessments on solar and biomass for hybridization. The paper mainly focuses on the resource assess- http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2016.09.025 0038-092X/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: dr.rajeshmits@gmail.com (R. Kumar). Solar Energy 139 (2016) 47–57 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Solar Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/solener