Thermo-Economic Investigation of Two Different ISCC Systems

The present work investigates two different layouts of an integrated solar combined cycle system which one is driven by a parabolic trough collector and another is running with a solar power tower. The annual simulation of solar conversion into electricity reveals that the best efficiency is attributed to the thermal plant using the solar tower with a value of about 20.8% throughout the year. Furthermore, the economic assessment shows an approximate cost of the electricity production for both integrated solar systems. Thereby, the cost of electricity is of about 0.0554 $/kWh and 0.0515 $/kWh for the plant-based solar tower and that based parabolic collectors, respectively.