Can Hybrid Solar-Fossil Power Plants Mitigate CO2 at Lower Cost than PV or CSP?

Abstract

Fifteen of the United States and several nations require a portion of their electricity come from solar energy. We perform an engineering-economic analysis of hybridizing concentrating solar thermal power with fossil fuel in an Integrated Solar Combined Cycle (ISCC) generator. We construct a thermodynamic model of an ISCC plant in order to examine how much solar and fossil electricity is produced and how such a power plant would operate, given hourly solar resource data and hourly electricity prices. We find that the solar portion of an ISCC power plant has a lower levelized cost of electricity than stand-alone solar power plants given strong solar resource in the US southwest and market conditions that allow the capacity factor of the solar portion of the power plant to be above 21%. From a local government perspective, current federal subsidies distort the levelized cost of electricity such that photovoltaic electricity is slightly less expensive than the solar electricity produced by the ISCC. However, if the cost of variability and additional transmission lines needed for stand-alone solar power plants are taken into account, the solar portion of an ISCC power plant may be more cost-effective.