Thermoeconomic optimization of a combined-cycle solar tower power plant

James Spelling, Daniel Favrat, Andrew Martin and Germain Augsburger

Energy, 2012, vol. 41, issue 1, 113-120

Abstract: A dynamic model of a pure-solar combined-cycle power plant has been developed in order to allow determination of the thermodynamic and economic performance of the plant for a variety of operating conditions and superstructure layouts. The model was then used for multi-objective thermoeconomic optimization of both the power plant performance and cost, using a population-based evolutionary algorithm. In order to examine the trade-offs that must be made, two conflicting objectives will be considered, namely minimal investment costs and minimal levelized electricity costs. It was shown that efficiencies in the region of 18–24% can be achieved, and this for levelized electricity costs in the region of 12–24 UScts/kWhe, depending on the magnitude of the initial investment, making the system competitive with current solar thermal technology.

Keywords: Solar thermal power; Combined-cycle; Multi-objective optimization; Thermo-economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544211002416
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:41:y:2012:i:1:p:113-120

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2011.03.073

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().