Techno-economic analysis of a hybrid CSP-CPV power plant

The present study aims to investigate the energy performance and the cost-effectiveness of a hybrid CSP-CPV power plant with a nominal power of 1 MW as a function of the most relevant design parameters. In particular, the study evaluates the influence of the Power Ratio, the Solar Multiple, and the Thermal Energy Storage Capacity on the specific energy production of the plant and the corresponding Cost of Energy. In order to test the hybrid system ability to produce programmable power output curves, a dispatch strategy that maximizes the energy production by assuming a fixed power output and a suitable time duration is developed and tested. Finally, the ability of the plant to handle with weather forecast uncertainty is assessed through a random perturbation of DNI. The results show that the hybrid plant leads to an increase of the energy production cost with respect to a simple CPV configuration but the performance obtained for CSP plants were not reached. However, the delivery of programmable power output curves lead to significant dispatch losses with a consequent increase of the energy production cost. Finally, a more robust energy supplying is achieved by the hybrid configuration, especially for high uncertainty values, but the annual unmet energy obtained for the hybrid CSP-CPV plant is generally higher than that of the only-CSP configuration.