Economical Optimization of Integrated Cooling Tower by Solar Energy

Nowadays, the visible impact of releases to the ambient has become a matter of greater concern due to the awareness of environmental degradation and protection among the society. Therefore, the contribution of renewable energies as the free and clean sources can provide environment-friendly solutions. However, little attention has been paid to the practical applications of the renewables. Cooling towers are widely used in industries and commercial buildings to dissipate waste heat to the ambient environment. During unfavorable weather conditions, the exhaust of the wet cooling tower remixes with the cooler ambient air and as it cools down the excess moisture condenses in small fog droplets, creating visible plume. The generated plume sometime can extend up to few hundred meters and causes invisibility and darkness problem. In this study, solar energy is integrated into wet cooling tower to reduce the visible plume formation. In this method, optimum solar system is achieved taking into consideration the economical analysis. Also, the operational conditions of cooling tower at various environmental states have been incorporated in targeting the optimum solar system through different scenarios. Related coding in MATLAB version 7.1 is developed for computations.