Global installed CSP had hiked from 355 MW in 2005 to more than 4700 MW in 2015 and it was predicted that the market would increase further in the years to come. Accordingly, large Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants are of PTC technology. Among these technologies, parabolic trough collector is more popular and being used at many locations worldwide. For generating power from solar thermal power system, the following four technologies are presently being used: 1. It is well known that, solar energy is of two types-solar photovoltaic and solar thermal. As of now we have 7.57 GW as installed capacity. It is well known that Government of India has put up a major target of 100 GW of electric power from solar installations by the near 2022. Received 17 June 2016 accepted 30 July 2016 published 2 August 2016 We have also compared our results with previous studies and discussed. Our results show that annual solar thermal power plant of 1 MW e capacity potential varies from 900 to 2700 MWh. For this modelling has been carried out for every grid station of 0.25 ° × 0.25 ° interval in India. As our results show less than 10% deviation as compared to the actual generation, an attempt has been made here to estimate the potential for the entire nation. Difference between our results and the expected energy generation varied from 0.4% to 13.7% with an average deviation of 6.8%. Our developed model is also validated with 18 different solar power plants in different parts of the world by slightly modifying the parameters according to the plant capacity without changing major changes to the plant design. Our results have closely matched with a small deviation of 3.1% and 3.6% for Gurgaon and Rajasthan plants, respectively. The results are compared with the expected output of Gurgaon power plant and also 50 MW power plant at Rajasthan. We have marginally modified the design of 1 MW operational power plant installed at Gurgaon using Parabolic Trough Collector (PTC) technology. For estimating the potential of CSP plants, it is planned to simulate a power plant.
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As compared to solar photovoltaic, solar thermal installations are less studied, especially regarding energy estimation and performance analysis.
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Solar power can be transmitted through grid either from solar photovoltaic or solar thermal technology. The target of the National Solar Mission is to build up India as a worldwide pioneer in solar energy generation.