This research assesses the Ecuadorian power generation system, estimating the electricity supply and demand forecast until 2040. For this purpose, three potential alternative scenarios were analyzed using the Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning (LEAP) System; S1: Business As Usual; S2: Power Generation Master Plan; and S3: Sustainable Power Generation System. The main goal of this study is to analyze the possible alternatives for electricity supply and demand, fuel consumption, and the future structure of the Ecuadorian power generation system to transform the current system based on petroleum fuels into a sustainable system that consumes natural gas, and progressively introduces renewable power generation plants such as solar, wind, biomass, and hydroelectric until 2040. According to the estimated results through the inclusion of sustainable energy policies, S3 scenario relative to S1 scenario could reduce the average CO 2 equivalent (CO 2 e) emissions by 11.72%, the average production costs by 9.78%, and the average petroleum fuel consumption by 15.95%. Consequently, a correct energy transition contributes to the protection of the environment and public health and has a direct effect on economic savings for the state, which benefits to improve the citizen's quality of life.
This work quantifies the impact of using sCO2-mixtures (s-CO2/He, s-CO2/Kr, s-CO2/H2S, s-CO2/CH4, s-CO2/C2H6, s-CO2/C3H8, s-CO2/C4H8, s-CO2/C4H10, s-CO2/C5H10, s-CO2/C5H12 and s-CO2/C6H6) as the working fluid in the supercritical CO2 recompression Brayton cycle coupled with line-focusing solar power plants (with parabolic trough collectors (PTC) or linear Fresnel (LF)). Design parameters assessed are the solar plant performance at the design point, heat exchange dimensions, solar field aperture area, and cost variations in relation with admixtures mole fraction. The adopted methodology for the plant performance calculation is setting a constant heat recuperator total conductance (UAtotal). The main conclusion of this work is that the power cycle thermodynamic efficiency improves by about 3–4%, on a scale comparable to increasing the turbine inlet temperature when the cycle utilizes the mentioned sCO2-mixtures as the working fluid. On one hand, the substances He, Kr, CH4, and C2H6 reduce the critical temperature to approximately 273.15 K; in this scenario, the thermal efficiency is improved from 49% to 53% with pure s-CO2. This solution is very suitable for concentrated solar power plants coupled to s-CO2 Brayton power cycles (CSP-sCO2) with night sky cooling. On the other hand, when adopting an air-cooled heat exchanger (dry-cooling) as the ultimate heat sink, the critical temperatures studied at compressor inlet are from 318.15 K to 333.15 K, for this scenario other substances (C3H8, C4H8, C4H10, C5H10, C5H12 and C6H6) were analyzed. Thermodynamic results confirmed that the Brayton cycle efficiency also increased by about 3–4%. Since the ambient temperature variation plays an important role in solar power plants with dry-cooling systems, a CIT sensitivity analysis was also conducted, which constitutes the first approach to defining the optimum working fluid mixture for a given operating condition.
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