Levelized Cost of Coating (LCOC) for selective absorber materials

Abstract

A new metric has been developed to evaluate and compare selective absorber coatings for concentrating solar power applications. Previous metrics have typically considered the performance of the selective coating (i.e., solar absorptance and thermal emittance), but cost and durability were not considered. This report describes the development of the levelized cost of coating (LCOC), which is similar to the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) commonly used to evaluate alternative energy technologies. The LCOC is defined as the ratio of the annualized cost of the coating (and associated costs such as labor and number of heliostats required) to the average annual thermal energy produced by the receiver. The baseline LCOC using Pyromark 2500 paint was found to be $0.055/MWh t , and the distribution of LCOC values relative to this baseline were determined in a probabilistic analysis to range from -$1.6/MWh t to $7.3/MWh t , accounting for the cost of additional (or fewer) heliostats required to yield the same baseline average annual thermal energy produced by the receiver. A stepwise multiple rank regression analysis showed that the initial solar absorptance was the most significant parameter impacting the LCOC, followed by thermal emittance, degradation rate, reapplication interval, and downtime during reapplication.4

Solar Thermal Energy Conversion Enhanced by Selective Metafilm Absorber Under Multiple Solar Concentrations at High Temperatures

“…Instead, a material cost analysis of the metafilm was performed (see details in the Supplemental Information), which turned out to be $2.23 per square meter. This is significantly lower than the materials cost of some commercial solar absorber coatings such as Pyromark, Co3O4, and LSM which cost $5.41, $50, and $100 per square meter, respectively [39].…”

Fabrication of Self‐Cleaning CNT‐Based Near‐Perfect Solar Absorber Coating for Non‐Evacuated Concentrated Solar Power Applications

“…An analytical model was used to evaluate the optical performance of the CNT@matrix coatings under the same conditions of a CSP plant and compared with two other selective coatings: W–Ni–Al 2 O 3 cermet [ 30 ] and CNT/ITO inverse tandem. [ 23 ] The method was based on the concept of the selective absorber efficiency, η sel , first proposed by Ho et al [ 31 ] where , , and are the solar power absorbed, emitted, and incident per m of the absorber tube, respectively. The concept of η sel was developed for tower receivers, assuming that the solar irradiated surface equals the radiating surface.…”

Concentrating Solar Power

“…Heliostat fields have large concentration ratios around 1000×, so high absorptance is the primary concern for good receiver efficiency in central receivers. 179 There are two primary designs for central receivers: external receivers and cavity receivers, both of which are shown in Figure 14. 180 In an external receiver the absorbing surface is on the outer surface of the receiver, which typically takes a cylindrical shape, and the heliostat field can completely surround the central receiver.…”