Techno-economic and Environmental Impact Assessment of CSP and PV Power Generation for Different Climate Zones /

Abstract

In this study, cleaner energy production through two main solar energy technologies is compared from technical, economical, and environmental perspectives. The impact of solar multiple, thermal storage size, and cooling system for CSP, while module type and tracking system for PV is investigated to evaluate the techno-economic performance of power plant. Technical performance is evaluated on energy generation and capacity factors metrics, while economic performance is evaluated on levelized cost, payback period, and net present value metrics. In addition, environmental metrics such as GHG emissions reduction, fossil fuel saved, and life cycle water consumption are evaluated. Initially, 50 MW CSP power plant is modeled and simulated at four selected locations, then the most feasible location for CSP based power plant is compared with a solar PV plant of the same capacity. From the result, it is concluded that CSP based power plant located at Quetta is technically and economically viable and has a very good potential to mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change by producing clean energy. The capacity factor of the CSP plant is 36.6% as compared to 19.8% for the PV plant, while the solar to electrical efficiency of CSP plant is 14.2% as compared to 20.8% for the PV plant. The land area required to generate energy is 2.77 acres/GWh for CSP and 2.33 acres/GWh for PV plant, while the net capital cost for CSP is 5 times higher than that of PV plant. The optimization of different design parameters is performed to obtain the minimized levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for both CSP and PV plants. Simulation results for CSP and PV plants in Quetta indicate that LCOE can be minimized to 11.57 cents/kWh and 4.69 cents/kWh, respectively. CSP plant has superior annual energy production and capacity factor in comparison to PV plant, while PV plant is superior in terms of project capital cost and levelized cost of energy. Thus, the CSP plant performs better from a technical perspective while the PV plant performs better from an economic perspective.