Opportunities and challenges of baseload solar electricity

Baseload solar electricity refers to the consistent, continuous generation of solar power over 24 h to meet a minimum level of electricity demand. Baseload solar electricity is important for several reasons, which include reliable power generation, energy grid stability, diversification of renewable energy mix, environmental benefits, and cost competitiveness. Opportunities and challenges of baseload solar electricity based on techno-economic computations of levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and time profiles of electricity production in the specific location of NEOM City, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Either solar photovoltaic and external thermal energy storage or battery energy storage may provide a fairly stable electricity supply, marginally suffering from day-to-day changes and seasonal variability, at an LCOE of 7.22 and 7.72 US$ ¢/kWh, respectively. These values are 5 and 12% larger than those which may be delivered by concentrated solar power with internal thermal energy storage at 6.88 US$ ¢/kWh. Additionally, while the ratio of summer to winter electricity production from the concentrated solar power plant can be lowered to ~ 1.22, in the case of the solar photovoltaic plant it is a much larger ~ 1.83. These results show as concentrated solar power with thermal energy storage is superior to solar photovoltaic with external energy storage under both criteria of LCOE and minimization of annual variability, even if concentrated solar power may suffer much more in single days of very bad weather.