Abstract:

In the last decades, there is an increasing attention on renewable energy sources to overcome energy related problems such as global warming/climate change, security of energy supply, depletion of fossil fuels, unpredictable energy prices, conflictions on energy sources etc. Solar energy is an abundant source of renewable energy readily available on the earth. With the recent developments in solar energy conversion technologies, concentrating solar power (CSP) systems for heat and power productions have become attractive solutions. Currently, CSP systems using parabolic trough collectors (PTCs) are dominated the global CSP market since there are the most mature technology and the most installed CSP systems in the world. Turkey is one of the countries benefiting from good solar radiation, so CSP systems may be one of the solutions for the renewable energy production. In this study, technoeconomic analysis of a small (1 MWe) PTC-CSP power plant using combined Rankine cycle for electricity production in Izmir, Turkey, is presented as a case study for an example of PTC-CSP power plant utilization in the locations in Turkey with high solar radiation values. Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), internal rate return, net present value and payback period of the power plant for three different layout configurations of the PTCs in the solar field are calculated by using System Advisory Model (SAM), MATLAB and Excel softwares. The results show that for 1MWe PTC-CSP power plant in İzmir, the initial investment cost is approximately 3.9 Million USD with LCOE of 135 USD/MWh, and the annual operational cost of 37.5 USD/MWh with a payback period of 11.5 years. Also, the required cost for site optimization (RCO) per kWth of exergy destruction and energy loss for the solar field configuration #1 is found to be 1830.2 USD and 1887.5 USD respectively. These results figure out that there are some possible improvements to be achieved. However, the values for the solar field configuration #2 and #3 are closed to the minimal RCO per kWth. This means that no further improvement can be achieved. 

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