Review on the economic impacts of solar thermal power plants

Abstract

A systematic literature review on the economic performance of solar thermal power plants including integrated solar combined cycle (ISCC) plants was conducted. A number of solar thermal technologies like parabolic trough (PT), solar tower (ST), linear Fresnel reflector (LFR) and solar dish (SD) were evaluated. The evaluation revealed that solar tower plants typically had the highest capital costs, followed by parabolic-trough and linear Fresnel plants. The results of the studies showed that at smaller capacities of 10–50 MW, PT plants achieved lower LCOE than ST plants, while at larger capacities of 100 MW and above, ST tend to have lower LCOE than PT. There was limited comparative studies on the economic performance of LFR and SD plants. Hence, future studies should focus on the economic impact of different solar thermal technologies including LFR and SD of various capacities using homogeneous modelling conditions. The economic performance of direct steam generation (DSG)-ISCC plants was compared to ISCC, combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) and conventional solar thermal plants and the results showed that DSG-ISCC plants achieved the lowest LCOE values. Studies also showed that in general, hybrid plants achieved lower LCOE than standalone solar thermal plants. LCOE and capital costs were the dominant financial metrics used in the literature, with very few studies using total life cycle cost, revenues, payback time and internal rate of return. Future studies should include these metrics in order to provide a comprehensive financial assessment of solar thermal power plants, enabling their economic performance to be compared with other renewable and non-renewable energy systems.