Simulation and Optimization of 100 MW Central Tower CSP Power Plant

Central tower concentrated solar power (CSP) systems are considered the most mature clean technology to substitute conventional power plants. This work incorporates a simulation and optimization study on a 100 MW central tower CSP plant with 15 h of thermal energy storage in Dubai, UAE. The main performance indicators studied are the capacity factor (CF) and the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). At first, a parametric study was conducted by varying 10 different operational and geometrical parameters to observe their impact on CF and LCOE using System Advisor Model (SAM) software. The 4 most significant parameters included were hot and cold HTF temperatures, tower height and the heliostat area. A total number of 81 SAM simulations were performed and obtained data sets were used for data regression to find the coefficients of the decision variables in the objective functions to either minimize LCOE or maximize CF. Results showed that the data regression performed accurately with an error of less than 1% compared to the simulated results. The maximum CF was found to be 48.3% where the minimum obtained LCOE value was 13.22 c/kWh. The optimized parameter values can lead to a substantial performance enhancement of 17.8% in the CF and 19.3% compared to the base case scenario obtained by SAM.