Advances in the integration of solar thermal energy with conventional and non-conventional power plants

Pollution and increasing fuel prices are the main focus for governments today. The main cause of pollution is existing electricity power plants that use huge quantities of fossil fuel. A new strategy should be applied in the coming decades based on the integration of existing power plants with renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind energy. Hybridization of existing power plants with solar energy is one proven option to overcome the problems of pollution and increasing fuel prices. In this paper, a review of the previous studies and papers for integrating solar thermal energy with conventional and non-conventional power plants was carried out. The focus on hybrid solar conventional power plants includes: the review of studies of hybrid solar-steam cycle power plants, integrated solar combined-cycle systems (ISCCS) and hybrid solar-gas turbine power plants, while for hybrid solar non-conventional power plants the focus of study is hybrid solar-geothermal power plants. The most successful option is ISCCS due to their advantages and the plans for implementation at various power plants in the world like in Tunisia, Egypt, Spain, and Iran. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.