Life Cycle Assessment of a HYSOL Concentrated Solar Power Plant: Analyzing the Effect of Geographic Location

Abstract

Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technology is developing in order to achieve higher energy efficiency, reduced economic costs, and improved firmness and dispatchability in the generation of power on demand. To this purpose, a research project titled HYSOL has developed a new power plant, consisting of a combined cycle configuration with a 100 MWe steam turbine and an 80 MWe gas-fed turbine with biomethane. Technological developments must be supported by the identification, quantification, and evaluation of the environmental impacts produced. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the environmental performance of a CSP plant based on HYSOL technology using a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology while considering different locations. The scenarios investigated include different geographic locations (Spain, Chile, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and South Africa), an alternative modelling procedure for biomethane, and the use of natural gas as an alternative fuel. Results indicate that the geographic location has a significant influence on the environmental profile of the HYSOL CSP plant. The results obtained for the HYSOL configuration located in different countries presented significant differences (between 35% and 43%, depending on the category), especially in climate change and water stress categories. The differences are mainly attributable to the local availability of solar and water resources and composition of the national electricity mix. In addition, HYSOL technology performs significantly better when hybridizing with biomethane instead of natural gas. This evidence is particularly relevant in the climate change category, where biomethane hybridization emits 27.9-45.9 kg CO 2 eq per MWh (depending on the biomethane modelling scenario) and natural gas scenario emits 264 kg CO 2 eq/MWh.

Concentrating Solar Power Technologies

“…The main advantages of PD technologies include high energy efficiency (up to 30%) and modularity (5-50 kW), in addition to being particularly suited to distributed generation systems [39,[49][50][51][52]. Based on the literature [54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62], the specific features of CSP technologies are presented in a comparative manner in Table 1. PT systems occupy a large area, having low thermodynamic efficiency due to their low operating temperature.…”

“…ST has high thermodynamic efficiency due to a high operating temperature; it occupies a large area, it has high installation cost and records high heat losses. Finally, PD occupies small area, features high thermodynamic efficiency due to high operating temperature, but it requires a high installation cost [54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62].…”

Soiling and Cleaning of Polymer Film Solar Reflectors

“…Parabolic-trough collectors represent the most extended technology both for power generation with concentrating solar power (CSP) plants [4] and also to cover the thermal energy demand in the temperature range from 100 to 250 • C in applications such as industrial process heat, domestic hot water, space heating, solar cooling, pumping irrigation water, organic Rankine cycles, and desalination [5]. The performance of parabolic-trough plants is critically dependent on the optical efficiency of the solar field, within which the reflectance of the solar collector mirrors play a major role [6].…”

A Hybrid Method for Generation of Typical Meteorological Years for Different Climates of China

“…The fact that China ranks as the second largest consumer of energy raises concern about energy conservation and environmental protection [1][2][3]. Solar energy, as a kind of renewable energy, is more energy-efficient and eco-friendly than oil and coal [4][5][6]. Solar energy has received much attention in China as it is considered to meet a portion of China's energy demand.…”