Life cycle assessment (LCA) of a concentrating solar power (CSP) plant in tower configuration with different storage capacity in molten salts

Gasa, Gemma; Prieto, Cristina; López-Román, Anton; Cabeza, Luisa F.

doi:10.1016/j.est.2022.105219

Cited by 32 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…It is somewhat surprising, given the obvious advantages of CST for utility-scale electrical power, that there has not been wider adoption especially in desert regions of high insolation. These advantages include: (i) CFs of >40% can be achieved and a recent study indicated that 17.5 h of thermal storage could yield fossil fuel plant-like CFs of >80% i.e., baseload power, in a power-tower molten salt architecture (Gasa et al, 2022); (ii) CST uses conventional turbine technology and this means it can be used as a spinning reserve connected directly to the grid, and be hybridized with conventional fossil fuel plant; and (iii) the means to increase CF in CST is via thermal storage -heat energy being considerably simpler and cheaper to store than electrical energy (c.f. batteries required for solar PV).…”

Section: Solar Energy For Utility-scale Stationary Electrical Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Solar energy for societal decarbonisation: a perspective on emerging opportunities in utility-scale solar electricity and solar in the built environment

Meredith

2024

Front. Sustain. Cities

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The solar resource presents almost limitless opportunities for creating clean energy – not just in the form of solar-derived electricity, but also to drive heating and cooling cycles, create solar fuels, or indeed to promote chemical and biochemical pathways for the production of food, clean water and raw materials. There is an ever-expanding plethora of applications for solar energy as a critical contributor to global decarbonization. This short Perspective is focused on two of the largest opportunities for solar energy to make major emissions reduction and deliver societal fairness and economic impacts: notably utility-scale electricity generation and the more local opportunities of the built environment. We examine the two dominant forms of solar energy – the direct generation of electrical power via the photovoltaic effect, and the indirect generation of electricity (and indeed heating and cooling energy) through solar thermal cycles. As a Perspective, it provides necessary background for the general reader, but also seeks to emphasise the specific challenges and opportunities for the interested specialist.

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Section: Solar Energy For Utility-scale Stationary Electrical Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Solar energy for societal decarbonisation: a perspective on emerging opportunities in utility-scale solar electricity and solar in the built environment

Meredith

2024

Front. Sustain. Cities

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“…Especially, the LCI is based on the raw data and secondary data from the GaBi and Ecoinvent databases. LCA was used to investigate the tower solar power plants in various storage capacities by Gasa [69]. The specific data were obtained from the Ecoinvent database.…”

Section: Concentrating Solar Power In Different Data Source and Regionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the same time, LCOE and LCA can also be coupled together. Gasa et al [69] established correlations between LCOE and LCA results by comparing the impact of tower CSP plants with different storage capacities (3, 6, 9, and 17.5 h at nominal conditions, i.e., 17.5 h in plant operation) in a comparative study. The LCOE is calculated as the LifeCycleCost to LifeCycleEnergy ratio.…”

Section: Techno-economic Evaluation Of Lcoe For Concentrating Solar P...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the Life Cycle Sustainability of Solar Energy Production Systems: A Toolkit Review in the Context of Ensuring Environmental Performance Improvements

Tan,

Wu,

Zhang

et al. 2023

Sustainability

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In order to pursue clean, low-carbon, safe, and efficient energy utilization and accelerate the development of new energy, sustainability is the necessary research. In recent decades, solar power generation has rapidly formed and been widely applied. Sustainability analysis is a key aspect that directly affects the construction of solar power projects when conducting solar power generation construction. This paper attempts to start with life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) and study the status quo of its three pillars (These three pillars include life cycle assessment, life cycle cost assessment, and social life cycle assessment) in the field of solar power generation. At the same time, the externality indicators are considered between pillars. In addition, the application of uncertainty analysis was studied during the analysis process to address the impact of various random factors. The conclusion shows that further research is needed to support this transition by integrating life cycle assessment, life cycle cost, and social life cycle assessment into LCSA for the evaluation. To improve the effectiveness of future research, studies should focus on fulfilling major data gaps in the literature such as the lack of detailed documentation for specific materials and background process choices in life cycle assessment databases. The development of solar power generation can be an important alternative in efforts to decrease climate change impacts and pursue cleaner energy sources in countries where solar energy is more easily available by integrating life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle cost (LCC), and social life cycle assessment (SLCA) into LCSA. The sustainable development of the solar power generation industry in terms of multiple aspects is supported.

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“…Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) is both a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the environmental impacts, where the emissions and resource extractions are translated into a limited number of environmental impact scores [31]. Steps in LCIA involve the selection of impact categories, classification, characterization, normalization, and weighting.…”

Section: Impact Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For renewable energies, the average emissions vary between 4-46 g of CO2eq/kWh while the values vary between 469-1001 g CO2eq/kWh for fossil fuels. In the LCA study conducted by [31] on the environmental impacts from a concentrated solar power (CSP) plant with and without TES, it was revealed that the total impacts without storage were more than double that for a plant with storage. When the impacts were further broken down into the impacts from the operational and manufacturing phases, nearly all the impacts were generated during the manufacturing phase for a CSP with storage.…”

Section: Lca Studies Of Sensible Heat Storage Systems and The Potenti...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Life Cycle Assessment of Sensible, Latent and Thermochemical Thermal Energy Storage Systems for Climate Change Mitigation – A Systematic Review

2022

JETP

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Renewable energy sources coupled with thermal energy storage (TES) systems offer a better hope in mitigating climate change. But, in order to integrate TES systems into the grid, it is important to understand their environmental performances. Life cycle assessment (LCA) serves as a leading methodological tool for environmental decision-making processes that allows one to identify the critical areas of improvement in a product life cycle, and hence can be used effectively in climate change mitigation strategies. Due to the scarcity of review articles that provide useful information on the LCAs of TES systems, a total of 23 papers were reviewed in this study. These were reviewed under three categories: sensible heat storage (SHS) systems, latent heat storage (LHS) systems, and thermochemical heat storage (THS) systems. Further, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions arising from TES systems were evaluated, giving special attention on the global warming potential impact category. The production stage was found to be the major contributor to GWP in all three TES systems. Following this review study, it can be concluded that the environmental performance can be greatly enhanced through TES systems, due to significant reductions in GHG emissions.

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Life cycle assessment (LCA) of a concentrating solar power (CSP) plant in tower configuration with different storage capacity in molten salts

Cited by 32 publications

References 17 publications

Solar energy for societal decarbonisation: a perspective on emerging opportunities in utility-scale solar electricity and solar in the built environment

Solar energy for societal decarbonisation: a perspective on emerging opportunities in utility-scale solar electricity and solar in the built environment

Assessing the Life Cycle Sustainability of Solar Energy Production Systems: A Toolkit Review in the Context of Ensuring Environmental Performance Improvements

Life Cycle Assessment of Sensible, Latent and Thermochemical Thermal Energy Storage Systems for Climate Change Mitigation – A Systematic Review

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