Numerical Simulations on the Performance of Savonius Turbines Under the Influence of Deflectors in a Solar Chimney Power Plant

In the last few decades, the elevated usage of non-renewable energy resources and associated carbon emissions necessitated the need of exploring different alternative renewable energy sources. From the literature, studies conducted on the power enhancement techniques of Solar Chimney Power Plants (SCPP) have limited explorations of the turbine components of the SCPPs. Thus, this work explores the application of Savinous-style wind turbines (SSWT) in the SCPP under the influence of deflectors for energy generation. Numerical simulations are conducted in the ANSYS Fluent software by utilizing the sliding mesh approach, while the radiation model is adopted for the SCPP. The SSWT model is validated using the existing literature, whil the SCPP model is validated based on experimental results from the Manzanares plant. The optimal operation of SCPP is suggested through the system’s flow analysis and power output from different configurations of deflectors with deflection angles between 140° and 150°. The numerical analysis shows an overall improvement in the performance of SSWT by 5.56% under the influence of deflectors for the SCPP application.