Impact of cooling tower technology on performance and cost-effectiveness of CSP plants

Abstract

Cooling towers are indispensable components for heat rejection in concentrated solar power (CSP) plants. However, the overall performance of CSP plants relies heavily on the choice of cooling tower technology. This paper aims at assessing the impact of cooling tower technology on CSP plant from performance, economic, and environmental perspectives. To achieve this goal, seven CSP projects worldwide with distinct features were selected, and multiple simulations on System Advisor Model software were performed to evaluate the annual energy production, capacity factor, and levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). Moreover, the impact assessment was performed in terms of key metrics, such as discounted payback period (DPP), savings-to-investment ratio (SIR), greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, water-saving, and total costs savings (TCS) including energy, carbon and water costs savings.The results showed that the wet cooling technology achieved the highest performance findings followed by hybrid and dry cooling technologies. The environmental analysis revealed that the wet cooling technology could avoid roughly 7.02% and 2.93% of GHG emissions compared to dry and hybrid cooling ones, respectively; however, it was found that dry and hybrid cooling technologies could be more profitable in arid regions with water scarcity, since they could save on average 93.30% and 69.83% of water, respectively, compared to the wet technology. Furthermore, the economic results showed that wet and hybrid cooling towers exhibit the best cost-effectiveness over dry cooling one as the LCOE was found to be $0.231/0.244 per kWh, and the DPP ranged between 13.41 and 23.46/14.95 and 34.75 years by integrating wet/hybrid technologies in CSP plants. Overall, wet and hybrid cooling technologies yield better TCS and SIR outcomes over dry cooling one. However, with respect to energy conservation, water savings, and GHG emissions savings, hybrid cooling tower could be considered as an optimal technology. This paper is expected to be a guideline for selecting the most cost-effective and eco-friendly cooling technology for future CSP plants, based on key criteria.