Thermo-economic analysis of air bottoming cycle hybridization using heliostat field collector: A comparative analysis

Nowadays, climate change has become a vital issue prompting investigations for increasing the share of renewable energy employment in power generation industry. Solar energy is arguably the most favorable solution for a greener power generation technology. With the current level of maturity, solar energy contribution is limited due to intermittency and storage issues. A possible solution to the aforementioned difficulties is power plant hybridization. In this paper, thermo-economic optimization of a hybrid air bottoming cycle (ABC) power plant is accomplished with the objective of minimizing the levelized cost of electricity. The aforementioned hybrid ABC optimization results are compared with a hybrid conventional combined cycle power plant to identify the most cost effective combined cycle configuration for a 50 MWe hybrid power plant. Finally, an already existing ABC power plant hybridization is investigated utilizing payback period, life cycle saving, and levelized cost of electricity approaches. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.