Today's Cost Research Articles

Oahu as a case study for island electricity systems relying on wind and solar generation instead of imported petroleum fuels

A macro-scale electricity model was used to evaluate whether wind and solar generation, combined with short- and long-duration energy storage, could cost-effectively provide 100% of Oahu's electricity. A least-cost renewable electricity system was developed with 100% of hourly averaged demand met, based on 14 consecutive years of hourly wind and solar resource and electricity demand data. The system used current asset costs for wind generation, solar generation, short-duration battery storage, and long-duration hydrogen energy storage. Our results indicate that Oahu could transition to an electricity system reliant on wind and solar generation and battery and hydrogen storage with electricity costs lower than today's electricity costs. For Oahu, a least-cost wind-solar-battery electricity system that would have met 100% of hourly averaged demand would have a system cost of $0.2458 per kWh. In comparison, from October 2022 through September 2023, electricity generation costs from the petroleum-dominated electricity system on Oahu were between $0.2126/kWh and $0.2987/kWh. This wind-solar-battery system would require 332 km2 (21.4%) of Oahu's land. Moreover, including hydrogen storage as a second form of energy storage led to reductions in system cost and land use. At current asset costs, a least-cost wind-solar-battery‑hydrogen electricity system that would have met 100% of hourly averaged demand would have a system cost of $0.1673/kWh and require 265 km2 (17.1%) of Oahu's land. This case study indicates that other isolated regions with similar resource profiles and a reliance on imported petroleum fuels could realize a decrease in electricity system costs when switching to renewables in conjunction with short- and long-duration energy storage, at current asset costs, while meeting demand in full over extended periods of renewable resource variability.

Waste incineration and heat recovery hybridized with low-focus fresnel lens solar collectors for sustainable multi-generation; A thorough techno-economic-environmental analysis and optimization

Biomass, including municipal solid waste, and solar energy are two of the inevitable sources for future decarbonized energy systems. Fresnel lens thermal collectors using cheap micro-structured foils is an interesting emerging medium-temperature solar thermal design that might be of high practical value, provided that its fluctuating output is managed. This study proposes a hybrid solar-waste solution using this type of collector for multi-generation via an Organic Rankine Cycle. The cycle is specially designed for supplying low-grade heat, power, and industrial heat (which is a very critical sector to be decarbonized) taking advantage of the generated stable solar-waste medium-temperature heat at zero emission level. To achieve this optimal design, the article conducts a thorough energy-exergy-economic-environment (4E) analysis of the system and employs the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA II) for the optimizations. A benchmarking analysis is also conducted to show the importance of industrial heat supply in this cycle. The results show that this hybridization, owing to the cheap and flexible heat delivery of the waste incinerator as well as the low cost of the solar collectors, is very effective for efficient and cheap multi-generation. Especially for industrial heat supply, the competitive levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of 23.96 €/MWh is obtained, which is way lower than today's achievable costs in the industry.

Design of High-Performance Electrodes for Tesla Batteries

With the aggravation of environmental pollution, the prevalence of the greenhouse effect and the increasing shortage of oil resources on earth, new energy vehicles emerged as the Times requires. As a giant of new energy vehicles, Tesla's electric vehicle stands out among its peers with its super endurance, but it still has many shortcomings that need improvement and enhancement. In today's society, battery safety, capacity, charging speed, weight, cost and many other factors have been considered in the comprehensive consideration of a good battery. In particular, some very necessary measures and issues of concern to the media of various countries. Such as the improvement of safety performance requires us to improve the performance of batteries continuously. Undoubtedly, the most important component of a battery is its electrode. So, designing and developing high-performance electrode material is one of the most important steps.

Lead Sequestration from Halide Perovskite Solar Cells with a Low-Cost Thiol-Containing Encapsulant.

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are being studied and developed because of the outstanding properties of halide perovskites as photovoltaic materials and high conversion efficiencies achieved with the best PSCs. However, leaching out of lead (Pb) ions into the environment presents potential public health risks. We show that thiol-functionalized nanoparticles provide an economic way of minimizing Pb leaching in the case of PSC module damage and subsequent water exposure (at most, ∼2.5% of today’s crystal silicon solar panel production cost per square meter). Using commercial materials and methods, we retain ∼90% of Pb without degrading the photovoltaic performance of the cells, compared with nonencapsulated devices, yielding a worst-case scenario of top-soil pollution below natural Pb levels and well below the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency limits.

Robustness of electricity systems with nearly 100% share of renewables: A worst-case study

Several research studies have shown that future sustainable electricity systems, mostly based on renewable generation and storage, are feasible with today's technologies and costs. However, recent episodes of extreme weather conditions, probably associated with climate change, cast shades of doubt on whether the resulting generation portfolios are sufficiently robust to assure, at all times, a suitable balance between generation and demand, when adverse conditions are faced. To address this issue, this work elaborates a methodology intended to determine a sustainable electricity generation system, that can endure extreme weather conditions which are likely to occur. First, using hourly production and demand data from the last decade, along with estimates of new uses of electricity, a worst-case scenario is constructed, including the storage capacity and additional photovoltaic power which are needed to serve the demand on an hourly basis. Next, several key parameters which may have a significant influence on the LCOE are considered, and a sensitivity analysis is carried out to determine their real impact, significance and potential trends. The proposed methodology is then applied to the Spanish system. The results show that, under the hypotheses and conditions considered in this paper, it is possible to design a decarbonized electricity system that, taking advantage of existing sustainable assets, satisfies the long-term needs by providing a reliable supply at an average cost significantly lower than current market prices.

Techno-economic assessment of solar steam reforming of methane in a membrane reactor using molten salts as heat transfer fluid

This paper reports the results obtained in a techno-economic analysis of the Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) technology aided with solar heat, developed and demonstrated in the European FCH JU project CoMETHy: a compact membrane reformer heated with molten salt up to 550 °C allowed to simultaneously carry out methane steam reforming, water-gas-shift reaction and hydrogen separation. This reactor can be integrated with new generation Concentrating Solar Thermal (CST) systems to supply the process heat. Experimental validation of the technology has been successfully achieved in a pilot scale plant and the results recently published. In this paper, we introduce a fully-integrated scheme and operation strategies of a plant on the 1500 Nm3/h hydrogen production scale. Then, techno-economic analysis of this new solar-driven process is presented to evaluate its competitiveness. Considering a plant capacity of 1500 Nm3/h (pure hydrogen production) and today's costs for the methane feed and the CST technology, obtained Hydrogen Production Cost (HPC) are in the range of 2.8–3.3 €/kg for a “solar-hybrid” system with high capacity factor (8000 h/year operation) and 4.7 €/kg for a “solar-only” case, while HPC≅1.7 €/kg can be obtained with the conventional route under equivalent assumptions. However, a sensitivity analysis shows that the expected drop of the cost of the CST technology will bring the HPC around 2.4 €/kg for the “solar-hybrid” case and close to 3.4 €/kg for the “solar-only” case, thus making the cost of solar reforming closer to conventional SMR with CO2 capture and with wind/solar electrolysis in the future. In the “solar-hybrid” case total CO2 production can be reduced by 13–29% with 58–70% of produced CO2 recovered as pure stream (at 1.3 bar); in the “solar-only” case total CO2 production can be reduced by 52% and 100% of produced CO2 recovered as pure stream (at 1.3 bar). However, compared to the conventional route, CO2 avoidance costs are still relatively high (≥137 €/tonCO2) and process optimization measures required. Therefore, optimization measures have been outlined to increase the overall process efficiency and further reduce the HPC.

Challenges towards large-scale fuel cell production: Results of an expert assessment study

Fuel cell electric vehicles are a promising alternative on the way to emission-free mobility. However, there is still a great deal of uncertainty as to how this change can be implemented technologically. Despite various research and development activities on fuel cells in the past two decades, a real breakthrough of fuel cell technology has not yet been reached. The aim of this paper is therefore to identify barriers to a commercialized production of PEM fuel cell stacks. For this purpose, a comprehensive expert study is performed, consisting of a qualitative, exploratory and a quantitative, hypothesis-confirming step. As a result, technical and non-technical barriers are examined and described in this paper. A cost estimation of today's actual manufacturing cost is presented as identified in the study. Conclusively, future research topics and needs for action are derived.

The cold high-pressure approach to hydrogen delivery

In view of the very expensive and wasteful nature of today's approaches to H2 delivery, we explore the possibility of transporting cold (200 K) high pressure (875 bar) H2 in thermally insulated trailers and dispensing H2 directly from the trailer, with the potential to eliminate station compressor, cascade, and refrigerator, leading to major reductions in station complexity, maintenance, electricity consumption, and cost, while improving functionality by enabling essentially unlimited back to back refuels, and improving safety due to reduced H2 expansion energy at low temperature.Detailed techno-economic analysis shows promise for substantial delivery cost reductions through cold high pressure H2 dispensed directly from the trailer. Results indicate that: (1) Terminal operations for cold high pressure H2 delivery are $0.32/kg H2 more expensive than for 350 bar compressed gas delivery (today's lowest cost H2 delivery technology) due to higher level of pressurization (to 1000 bar) and chilling needs (to 165 K). (2) Trailer cost drops slightly ($0.73 vs. $0.81/kg H2 for a 350 bar trailer) due to increased capacity (1035 kg H2 delivered vs. 700 kg) compensating for increased capital cost ($906,900 for cold high pressure H2 vs. $634,000 for 350 bar trailer). (3) Cold hydrogen delivery presents major advantages in fueling station cost, reduced from $1.27 to $0.46/kg H2 due to elimination of major system components: compressor, cascade, and chiller. (4) Total compression cost (terminal + station) drops from $0.92/kg H2 ($0.32 terminal and $0.60 station) for 350 bar trailers to $0.55/kg H2 (all at the terminal) for cold high pressure H2. (5) Elimination of small-scale station compressors is the main contributor to reduced delivery cost due to their inefficiency, capital expense, and maintenance needs. In summary, total delivery cost reduction vs. 350 bar trailer equals $0.58/kg H2 (from $2.96 to 2.38/kg H2), equivalent to 24% of the total delivery cost. This large cost advantage will improve the economics of H2 vehicles facilitating the transition to a future of zero emission transportation.

Ethics and Economic Growth in the Age of COVID-19: What Is a Just Society to Do?

These are fraught times with exponential growth of COVID-19 and many of us under lockdown conditions. But pandemics are not new. It is just that most of us alive have not experienced anything like this. Infection-induced holocausts have wiped out large shares of the population at various times. Think of smallpox and other infections among indigenous Americans or consider the horrific Black Plague of the mid-14th century and the Plague of Justinian in the sixth century. Our predecessors did the best they could with limited success at containment or treatment. Epidemiologists have been working overtime to forecast how this epidemic will unfold. Containment measures can be effective as we have seen in China and South Korea. This slows the outbreak and gives our woefully unprepared health system time to provide testing and surge capacity with more hospital beds, ventilators, supplies, and staff. Civilian and military stockpiles will help as will ramped up production. But time is of the essence and we have yet to see how overwhelmed our hospital capacity will become. We are lucky that COVID-19, while quite infectious, is not particularly deadly compared to many other threats. It has an estimated mortality rate ranging from 0.5% to 3.0%. This exceeds the mortality rate of 0.1% or maybe 0.2% for the common flu. Left unchecked, COVID-19 is expected to add perhaps 1 or 2 million deaths in the United States to the 3 million or so that we would otherwise experience from all causes. These numbers are too high if we do not have an accurate assessment of the mortality rate, because large numbers of asymptomatic persons are not accounted for in the denominator of estimated mortality rates. In either case, many of the deaths will occur among older Americans, but younger ones will die, too. It is also possible that improved therapeutics will reduce mortality without resorting to dire public health measures. Health care professionals are some of the brightest, most hardworking, and dedicated people we have. But they do have a blind spot. They are trained in the spirit of Hippocrates and are sworn to help the sick as much as possible. There is little, if any, emphasis in their training or culture to help determine when health expenditures are excessive. Yet, there is often opportunity cost to health-related decisions. Today's opportunity costs are of almost incomprehensible proportions. Do we shut down much of the economy to avert, or at least delay mass mortality? How much is too much? Unlike health care providers, economists and the business community are accustomed to weighing economic costs and benefits. There is growing concern in these circles and many question our approach going forward. The public relies on elected and unelected officials to make such judgments. Not all of them are from medical and public health communities and values clash. American politicians have been adept at avoiding decisions about costs and health. We are very squeamish about use of cost-effectiveness criteria, much more so than in other countries. Our health system is shaped by institutions that obfuscate decisions about the costs and benefits of health-related intervention. Some of this is about to end. Like an oncoming train, at some point soon, political and public health leaders will clash about economic versus health interests. An ethical balance must be found to best mitigate health and economic damage. Whatever happens may set precedent for decades or more. Perhaps some solace can be found in silver linings. Economic downturns are always an opportunity for regeneration. Some of our abrupt change will endure and improve the productivity of American workers. This in turn will lead to higher wages. Greater remote employment, more online education, and advances in artificial intelligence, for example, are here to stay. Rural economies will see dividends as more work from home. Telemedicine is being catalyzed with a rapid shift to online health care visits. This is particularly beneficial for rural regions. The huge injection of funds to boost health and public health capacity as part of fiscal stimulus will be of great benefit to the rural health sector and nearby communities. New job opportunities will be created. There will also be environmental dividends that markedly improve sustainability. This crisis shall pass. We will have better treatments and hopefully vaccines in a year. The future remains bright. But in the meantime, our leaders have difficult ethics-laden decisions to make and must explicitly face economic and health trade-offs that our society has long sought to evade.

Wolfgang Beyer: A Groundwater Scientist from Dresden.

Wolfgang Beyer: A Groundwater Scientist from Dresden.

The storage performance of automotive cryo-compressed hydrogen vessels

Cryo-compressed hydrogen storage promises to deliver the highest system storage density leading to practical vehicles with range comparable to today's gasoline vehicles and fundamental cost and safety advantages. However, cryogenic vessels are complex systems, continuously drifting in thermodynamic space depending on use patterns, insulation performance, vessel characteristics, liquid hydrogen pump performance, and para-H2 to ortho-H2 conversion. In this paper, cryogenic vessel fill density results from a previous publication are extended to calculate system storage performance, including volumetric (gH2/L), gravimetric (H2 weight fraction), and vent losses over a broad range of conditions. The results confirm previous experiments and models indicating that cryogenic pressure vessels have maximum system density of all available storage technologies while avoiding vent losses in all but the most extreme situations. Design pressures in the range 250–350 bar seem most advantageous due to high system density and low weight and cost, although determining an optimum pressure demands a complete economic and functional analysis. Future insulation, vessel, and liquid hydrogen pump improvements are finally analyzed that, while not experimentally demonstrated to date, show promise of being feasible in the future as their level of technical maturity increases, leading to maximum H2 storage performance for cryo-compressed storage. If proven feasible and incorporated into future cryogenic vessels, these improvements will enable 50 + gH2/L system density at 10+% H2 weight fraction.

Feeling able to say it like it is: A case for using focus groups in programme evaluation with international cohorts

In today's cost- and efficiency-conscious environment there may be resistance amongst HEIs to use informal verbal approaches to programme evaluation, such as focus groups, due to their resource-intensive nature. There may also be a lack of confidence amongst staff working with international cohorts about having the necessary skills to facilitate evaluative discussion and create an atmosphere of trust and openness. Drawing directly from three years' experience of directing a Finance programme with an international cohort of four to ten students in a UK University, this paper argues that focus groups offer an invaluable source of rich feedback. As the HE sector prepares for the TEF, and Business, Management and Finance dealing programmes continue to rely on high numbers of international students, this is an opportune time for programme directors to reflect on how their commitment to teaching excellence is evidenced beyond rhetoric and box-ticking. The value of making space for the student voice is not limited to T&L enhancement, but includes:•helping students to develop reflective and critical thinking•enabling them to negotiate programme changes•engaging students with issues concerning their learning experience•ensuring that diversity and inclusion are central to discussion agendas•forging HEI-students partnership in the learning process.

Fabrication and performance of Li4Ti5O12/C Li-ion battery electrodes using combined double flame spray pyrolysis and pressure-based lamination technique

Reduction of lithium-ion battery (LIB) production costs is inevitable to make the use of LIB technology more viable for applications such as electric vehicles or stationary storage. To meet the requirements in today's LIB cost efficiency, our current research focuses on an alternative electrode fabrication method, characterized by a combination of double flame spray pyrolysis and lamination technique (DFSP/lamination). In-situ carbon coated nano-Li4Ti5O12 (LTO/C) was synthesized using versatile DFSP. The as-prepared composite powder was then directly laminated onto a conductive substrate avoiding the use of any solvent or binder for electrode preparation. The influence of lamination pressures on the microstructure and electrochemical performance of the electrodes was also investigated. Enhancements in intrinsic electrical conductivity were found for higher lamination pressures. Capacity retention of highest pressurized DFSP/lamination-prepared electrode was 87.4% after 200 dis-/charge cycles at 1C (vs. Li). In addition, LTO/C material prepared from the double flame spray pyrolysis was also used for fabricating electrodes via doctor blading technique. Laminated electrodes obtained higher specific discharge capacities compared to calendered and non-calendered blade-casted electrodes due to superior microstructural properties. Such a fast and industrially compelling integrative DFSP/lamination tool could be a prosperous, next generation technology for low-cost LIB electrode fabrication.

Pembrolizumab as second-line therapy in non-small cell lung cancer in northern Norway: budget impact and expected gain—a model-based analysis

BackgroundPembrolizumab is a new drug approved in several countries for second-line therapy in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) being programmed cell death ligand (PD-L1) positive. This drug has a high cost, and the cost-effectiveness ratio has been debated.Patients and methodsThe budget impact to the Northern Norwegian Regional Health Authority trust of implementing pembrolizumab in second-line therapy in patients with PD-L1-positive NSCLC was calculated. A model was developed employing data from the Cancer Registry of Norway, the KEYNOTE-010 study, the price list from The Hospital Pharmacy of North Norway, the cost of analysing PD-L1 expression and the cost of travelling. Today's cost of second-line therapy was compared with the new standard employing pembrolizumab. The sale price of pembrolizumab in Norway was not published due to price confidentiality. Norwegian krone (NKr) was converted into Euros (€) at a rate of 1€=Nkr 8.8138. (Bank of Norway, 21 February 2017).Results105 new patients were identified available for pembrolizumab per year. The annual cost of pembrolizumab was €5.2 million, hospital pharmacy administration costs €0.1 million, PD-L1 testing €0.3 million, oncologist/pulmonologist/nurses €0.2 million, radiology €0.06 million and transportation €0.4 million. Savings due to avoided present second-line therapy was calculated €0.4 million. Consequently, the cost of implementing pembrolizumab was €5.5 million and the annual budget impact was €5.0 million. A mean gain of at least 9 months per patient treated was necessary to make pembrolizumab cost-effective.ConclusionsThe net budget impact of pembrolizumab was €5.0 million. The expenditure could not be indicated cost-effective. Price confidentiality is a growing problem in health economics and it has become a ‘menu without prices’ setting.

Impact of hydrogen refueling configurations and market parameters on the refueling cost of hydrogen

The cost of hydrogen in early fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) markets is dominated by the cost of refueling stations, mainly due to the high cost of refueling equipment, small station capacities, lack of economies of scale, and low utilization of the installed refueling capacity. Using the hydrogen delivery scenario analysis model (HDSAM), this study estimates the impacts of these factors on the refueling cost for different refueling technologies and configurations, and quantifies the potential reduction in future hydrogen refueling cost compared to today's cost in the United States. The current hydrogen refueling station levelized cost, for a 200 kg/day dispensing capacity, is in the range of $6–$8/kg H2 when supplied with gaseous hydrogen, and $8–$9/kg H2 for stations supplied with liquid hydrogen. After adding the cost of hydrogen production, packaging, and transportation to the station's levelized cost, the current cost of hydrogen at dispensers for FCEVs in California is in the range of $13–$15/kg H2. The refueling station capacity utilization strongly influences the hydrogen refueling cost. The underutilization of station capacity in early FCEV markets, such as in California, results in a levelized station cost that is approximately 40% higher than it would be in a scenario where the station had been fully utilized since it began operating. In future mature hydrogen FCEV markets, with a large demand for hydrogen, the refueling station's levelized cost can be reduced to $2/kg H2 as a result of improved capacity utilization and reduced equipment cost via learning and economies of scale.

Beyond the Ultra-Dense Barrier: Paradigm Shifts on the Road Beyond 1000x Wireless Capacity

It has become increasingly clear that the current design paradigm for mobile broadband systems is not a scalable and economically feasible way to solve the expected future crunch, in particular in indoor locations with large user densities. Moore's law, for example, state-of-the art signal processing and advanced antenna techniques now being researched, as well as more millimeter wave spectrum, indeed provide more capacity, but are not the answer to the three to four orders of magnitude more capacity at today's cost, that is needed. We argue that solving the engineering problem of providing high data rates alone is not sufficient. Instead, we need to solve the techno-economic problem to find both business models and scalable technical solutions that provide extreme area capacity for a given cost and energy consumption. In this article we will show that achieving very high capacities is indeed feasible in indoor environments. However, to become economically viable, approaches with radically different fundamental cost factors compared to those used in today's cellular systems are needed. To reach very high capacity we must venture beyond the ultra-dense barrier, that is, networks where the number of access points in an area is (considerably) larger than the active number of mobile terminals. In such networks area capacities of more than 1 Gb/s/m2 are perfectly feasible. The problem set encountered in such UDN is very different from conventional cellular systems and their solution requires conceptually new tools. We will address some of the fundamental aspects and performance limits, modeling of propagation, deployment and user traffic, and discuss the techno-economics of various network architectures. Finally we will summarize some of the most significant unsolved research questions in the field.

Benefits of On-Site Clinics

On-site, workplace clinics are one method to control today's healthcare costs. These clinics provide preventive care and treatment to employees at their place of employment, thus increasing their attendance at work. On-site clinics are particularly beneficial for decreasing the number of off-site, health-related, patient care visits. In this article, the authors describe an on-site clinic developed on a university campus. They review the history of on-site clinics, discuss the value of these clinics, present a case study describing the development of an on-site, university-campus clinic that has had a positive financial impact. They conclude that an on-site clinic can be a positive strategy to reduce healthcare costs for both the employer and the employees while promoting the health of the employees.

Challenging/interesting lignin times

Anyone who is working in the fuels industry knows that we are living in challenging times. On a personal note, I recall that ~5 years ago, some of my children's friends headed out into the petroleum industry to start their careers and several have now returned because of the retrenching work force. Despite these challenging times, the cellulosic ethanol industry continues to develop commercial operations, but with today's cost structure, biofuels production facilities have certainly slowed their pace of development and roll-out. Furthermore, the biological technology platform for biorefining plant polysaccharides to biofuels has been reported to have an intrinsic advantage, if it can convert its waste lignin stream to value-added components.[1]

Is the routine use of bevacizumab in the treatment of women with advanced or recurrent cancer of the cervix sustainable?

BackgroundNew chemotherapy combinations are being tested for the treatment of women with advanced, persistent or recurrent cervical cancer. We sought to evaluate the cost effectiveness of some newer combination therapies in cervical cancer.Patients and methodsA cost effectiveness decision model was used to analyze Gynecologic Oncology Group 240. All regimens were modeled for seven cycles. The regimens studied are as follows: regimen 1, cisplatin/paclitaxel (CP); regimen 2, CP with bevacizumab (CP+B); regimen 3, paclitaxel/topotecan (PT); and regimen 4, PT with bevacizumab (PT+B). Overall survival, cost, and complications were studied. Sensitivity analyses were performed.ResultsMean chemotherapy costs over mean total costs for seven cycles of each follows: CP $571/$32,966; CP+B $61,671/$96,842; PT $9,211/$71,620; and PT+B $70,312/$109,211. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) for CP+B was $133,559/quality adjusted life year (QALY). ICER for PT+B was $124,576/QALY. To achieve an incremental ICER for CP+B:CP of <$50,000/QALY gained, the mean overall survival has to increase from 1.1 years with CP to 3.5 years with CP+B. An ICER <$50,000/QALY for the other regimens would take a survival of >10 years for PT and 4.1 years for PT+B. Treating 1,000 women with cervical cancer with CP+B would cost almost double the cost of treating >18,000 women with ovarian cancer annually (carboplatin/paclitaxel).ConclusionCP is the most cost effective regimen. A 12-month increase in overall survival will not even make the newer combinations cost effective. Currently, the use of bevacizumab is not sustainable at today’s costs.

Multi-effect Absorption Chillers Powered by the Sun: Reality or Reverie

The feasibility of solar-powered multi-effect LiBr-H2O absorption chillers is investigated under different climate conditions, and three configurations of solar absorption chillers are proposed with respect to the type of the chiller. In the first configuration, a single-effect absorption chiller is coupled with evacuated tube collectors (ETCs), while parabolic trough collectors (PTCs) are utilized to run double- and triple-effect LiBr-H2O chillers in the second and third configurations, respectively. A simulation model for each configuration is developed in TRNSYS 17 environment. A parametric study is conducted by varying the fraction of direct normal irradiance (DNI) under three global horizontal irradiance (GHI) categories (low, medium and high) to determine which configuration results in the most efficient and cost-effective performance of the plant under a given climate. The simulation results reveal that there is no advantage in using solar multi-effect absorption chillers over solar single-effect chillers when the DNI fraction is less than 60% of the total solar global irradiance. However, a significant decrease in the size of the solar field for both double- and triple-effect chillers can be achieved in climates where the DNI fraction is above 60%. The cost analysis results indicate that a minimum DNI fraction of about 70% is required in order for solar-driven multi-effect chillers to be cost-competitive compared to solar single-effect chillers. The sensitivity analysis shows that the capital cost of PTCs needs to be 20% below today's nominal cost for multi-effect absorption chillers to be more cost-effective than ETC powered single-effect chillers in climates with relatively high DNI fraction (>∼50–60%).