Hello and welcome, dear listeners, to this video. Today's lecture is about simulating solar thermal power plants using a software called SAM, or in long form, System Advisor Model.

We will set up an example project of a solar thermal parabolic trough power plant and go through the main inputs and menus in SAM together. In between, we will discuss the theoretical basis of the technical components of the parabolic trough power plant to determine the inputs for SAM and to better understand the underlying calculation process in this software.

SAM is published and maintained by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, or short, NREL. The software can be downloaded from the website with the following URL.

Please note that there may be small differences between the software used in this video and your software, depending on which version you use. The software is updated regularly and the latest version can always be found on the official website. When starting the software for the first time, you will be asked to enter a license key.

To receive a license key, you first need to create a free user account. I recommend you to download the software SAM now and use it in parallel to this video. This way you can pause the video regularly and directly enter the inputs in SAM and compare your final simulation results with the results shown in this video.

At this point, I would also like to mention the extensive help menu integrated in the SAM software and different learning materials such as videos which are provided on the official website of the SAM software. Especially the help menu is very useful to look up the meaning of different settings and values in the software.

Let's have a short look at the main functionalities and applications of SAM. The software is aimed at a large group of users, mainly users who are active in the renewable energy sector. For example, project managers, engineers and technology developers.

So what can we do with SAM? We can predict the performance and financial parameters of a range of renewable energy technologies. Besides concentrating solar power plants like the PTC plant we cover in this video, the software also provides simulation models, for instance for photovoltaic systems and wind turbines.

The core component of SAM are the underlying financial and performance models for the different renewable energy technologies. The financial model is capable to determine the most important parameters for evaluating economic viability including levelized electricity production costs, investment costs and operation and maintenance costs.

The performance model is capable to provide plant operating parameters such as the electrical power output with hourly resolution over the period of one year. As mentioned in the beginning, we want to define and simulate a parabolic trough power plant in SAM.

Before we start with the software, I want to show you a basic overview of a parabolic trough power plant. The plant consists of the solar field, the thermal storage system and the actual power plant process. The solar field contains individual parabolic trough collectors and thermal oil is used as

the heat transfer medium which is heated up in the absorber tubes of the collectors. The thermal storage system consists of two molten salt tanks, one cold and one hot tank. The thermal energy produced by the solar field can be stored in the molten salt by directing the hot oil through the heat exchanger here.

The stored thermal energy can be provided to the power cycle in periods when there is no or not sufficient solar radiation. This way, the parabolic trough plant can provide electricity in the morning and evening hours when there is less solar radiation or during night time when no solar radiation is available.

In the next video, we will set up a new project file in SAM and we will define the location and weather data for our parabolic trough plant. So I hope to see you in the next video.