Techno-Economics and the Identification of Environmental Barriers to the Development of Concentrated Solar Thermal Power Plants in India

Abstract

India is endowed with a lot of solar radiation as a result of its location. The Indian government therefore intends to maximize the usage of its solar energy resources through the development of solar power plants across the country. The concentrated solar power plant (CSP) is one of the technologies that rely on solar energy for its electricity generation. The type of condenser model in the CSP technology has the potential to affect its techno-economic viability. In this paper, a 100 MW solar tower power plant (STPP) with two different condenser models, i.e., the dry-cooled STPP and wet-cooled STPP models, are studied using the System Advisor Model (SAM) at six different geographical areas in India. The study employed the optimization of the thermal energy storage and the solar field size to identify the minimum levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for all six locations. Results from the simulation show that the LCOE will range between 13 and 17 cents/kWh under the optimization conditions for the STPP dry-cooled condenser model, while that of the wet-cooled condenser model will range between 12.40 and 12.96 USD cents/kWh for the study locations. It was also observed that the optimized solar multiple (SM) for the dry-cooled STPP model ranges between 1.4 and 1.8, whereas that of the wet-cooled model ranges between 1 and 1.8. The study identified Bhopal as the best location for installing the STPP plant for both condenser models. In addition, this paper also discusses major potential barriers and government policies that are needed to develop CSP technologies in India. The outcome of the study is expected to help both government and other stakeholders in decision making and policy formulation for the sector.

Energy Management System for the Optimal Operation of PV Generators in Distribution Systems Using the Antlion Optimizer: A Colombian Urban and Rural Case Study

“…where I l,h is the vector in the complex domain that contains the current flowing through the distribution lines of the system; Y p is the primitive admission matrix containing the inverse of the impedance of each line on its diagonal; and A is the incidence matrix. Likewise, to obtain the value of E cost and E CO 2 , it is necessary to calculate the power generated at the terminals of the conventional generator, as shown in (38).…”

Optimizing Solar Parabolic Trough Receivers with External Fins: An Experimental Study on Enhancing Heat Transfer and Thermal Efficiency

“…The solar parabolic trough system does not directly release carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) during its operation because it does not use fossil fuels to generate heat. Using Equation (27) [19,81], it is possible to determine how much CO 2 is released during the process of making energy equivalent to that generated by the SPT system:…”

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