Solar-only Parabolic Trough Plants with High Steam Parameters

AbstractA technical and economical comparison of two parabolic trough CSP plants is made using full thermodynamic models. One plant is a hybrid plant with a natural gas fired booster in order to reach 540°C live steam temperature. The design of this plant is similar to that of the Shams One plant and a meteorological dataset for the site in Abu Dhabi was used for the annual performance calculations. The second plant is a parabolic trough plant using molten salt as heat transfer fluid in the solar field as well as storage material. Both plants are equipped with almost the same power block and show similar annual performance. The molten salt plant shows a cost reduction potential and the same or even higher flexibility and dispatch ability as the hybrid plant