Technoeconomic Impacts of Storage System Design on the Viability of Concentrated Solar Power Plants

For future concentrating solar power (CSP) plants, a levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) of $0.06/kWhe is targeted, with their greatest value being their low-cost storage. However, low-cost storage is not the only factor that should be considered when selecting storage systems as this choice can significantly impact other parts of the CSP plant, potentially leading to a higher LCOE. Therefore, the current study aims to economically investigate the integration of various storage system designs into a sodium/sCO(2) CSP plant. Using component cost targets coupled with storage cost estimates, the impact of storage design conditions could be evaluated. From this analysis it was found that while a molten chloride two-tank system had the lowest storage cost, integration led to a higher or comparable LCOE to other studied designs. Therefore, it is important that future storage designs and studies account for the complete CSP system when system configurations and technologies are proposed.

Automated summary

This study economically investigates the integration of various storage system designs into CSP plants, finding that the complete CSP system should be considered when selecting storage systems, rather than just focusing on cost.