1. SEPES
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  3. Volume 6, Number 1, 2024
  4. Increasing the Efficiency of Solar Water Pumping Installation Based on the Thermodynamic Analysis of Energy Conversion in a Centrifugal Pump

Increasing the Efficiency of Solar Water Pumping Installation Based on the Thermodynamic Analysis of Energy Conversion in a Centrifugal Pump

SEPES.
2024;
Volume 6, Number 1
: pp. 11 - 24
Authors:
  1. Yurii Biletskyi
1
Lviv Polytechnic National University

One of the promising way to use solar energy is standalone PV solar water pumping systems, which are designed for irrigation and urban/rural water supply instead of grid-connected electric or diesel water pumping systems. The simplest and most common among such solar water pumping systems are  direct driven systems that do not require  expensive  and unreliable storage  batteries. However, due to the inevitable seasonal, daily and weather-related reductions in the intensity of incident solar radiation, the frequency of rotation of the electric motor, which drives the pump, decreases, and the hydraulic performance of the pump decreases already in cubic dependence from its speed. All this leads both to the narrowing of the operating range of the intensity of solar radiation by approximately half, and to a sharp decrease in the efficiency of the pump. In order to substantiate the rational parameters of a centrifugal pump, in this paper, the pump is considered as a mechano-hydraulic power converter. To describe  the operation  of such  a converter, the  positions of linear non-equilibrium thermodynamics were applied, and the nonlinear static characteristics “head – volumetric flow” were linearized at the operating points of the pump. This approach made it possible to obtain a universal characteristic of the power converter – the dependence of the efficiency of the pump on the dimensionless parameter of the operating mode. The optimal point of maximum efficiency of the converter depends on the dimensionless degree of coupling between its input and output. The research conducted for a real pump operating in a real hydraulic system showed that with a decrease in the frequency of its rotation, all the indicated parameters of the converter change: the degree of coupling decreases, the efficiency decreases, and the operating point gradually moves from the left to the right area of decreasing parts of the thermodynamic efficiency. For the operational calculation of  the specified dimensionless parameters and the construction of the corresponding dimensionless characteristics of power converter, a program in the MathCad environment has been developed. With its use, a number of studies were carried out on the influence of the main parameters of the hydraulic system on the efficiency of the centrifugal pump at different frequencies of its rotation. As a result of the conducted research, it is shown that in order to expand the working range of the solar radiation intensity and significantly increase the energy efficiency of the pump in autonomous direct driven solar water pumping systems, it is advisable to use the pump with a nominal height of water rise higher than that set in a specific hydraulic system.

water pumping
solar installation
standalone system
centrifugal pump
efficiency
linear non-equilibrium thermodynamics
power converter
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