Marugán Cruz, CarolinaSánchez Delgado, SergioGómez Hernández, JesúsSantana Santana, Domingo José2021-01-252022-09-012020-09-01Marugán-Cruz, C., Sánchez-Delgado, S., Gómez-Hernández, J., & Santana, D. (2020). Towards zero water consumption in solar tower power plants. Applied Thermal Engineering, 178, 115505.1359-4311https://hdl.handle.net/10016/31771Important efforts are dedicated to reduce water use in the power generation sector. In this paper the use of a dry Heller cooling system is proposed to diminish the water consumption of a concentrated solar tower power plant. The Heller system is an indirect cooling system where the exhaust steam from the turbine is condensed in a direct contact heat exchanger. Part of the condensate and cooling water are pumped to the feed water heaters while the rest is pumped to the dry cooling tower. In this particular case a natural draft dry cooling tower is employed. The detailed cycle of the power block and the cooling system have been modeled. The results indicate a reduction of the annual energy production of less than 2% compared to a wet cooling system, and an increase of the energy production by more than 3% compared to a mechanically.eng© 2020 ElsevierAtribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 3.0 EspañaHeller systemSolar towerWater consumptionNatural draft towerresearch articleIngeniería Industrialhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2020.115505open access115Applied Thermal Engineering178AR/0000026324