The impact of a conceptual solar thermal electric conversion plant on regional meteorological conditions: A numerical study

A two-dimensional, mesoscale model of the atmosphere that incorporates hydrodynamic, thermodynamic, and microphysical processes has been applied to simulate the impact on regional weather of a solar thermal electric conversion (STEC) installation in southern Spain. The STEC plant is conceptualized to occupy an area of 1,000 km² with heliostats covering 25 per cent of the total power plant area. It is assumed to use wet natural draft cooling towers for dissipating waste heat into the atmosphere.The 2-D model is applied to a STEC facility that covers a distance of 32 km in the horizontal with heliostats installed in the middle over a distance of 8 km. The model has been integrated for 9 hr of real time for both typical summer and winter conditions.The results of integration for summer indicate that a STEC installation of the above size has considerable potential for modifying regional weather. Clouds formed after 5 hr of real-time integration and persisted until the end of the integration; rainfall also occurred. In contrast, clouds did not form until 7 hr of real-time integration without the installation and were more sporadic and transient; rainfall was much less.The results for winter conditions do not show any cloud formation after 9 hr of real-time integration. This difference between summer and winter cases is attributed to the very strong winds used as initial conditions for the winter simulation.