A thermo-economic assessment of CSP+TES in the north of Chile for current and future grid scenarios

This paper presents a thermo-economic analysis of a hypothesized concentrated solar power (CSP) tower plant with molten salt thermal energy storage (TES) located in the Atacama Desert in Chile with the aim of serving as input for the Solar Committee to better establish public policy programs to increase the competitiveness of CSP in Chile. The study focuses on an optimal plant in terms of size and configuration for expected conditions of the Chilean electricity market in 2018 and 2030. An ideal CSP+TES configuration to complement the electricity pool market from a grid point of view was obtained for each year. An exergetic study was performed for each configuration under assumed annual operation conditions and a thermos-economic analysis was done considering specific costs per component. Thermo-economic indicators were obtained allowing to define a priority hierarchy of specific techno-economical improvements that can be done at plant and component level to maximize the competitiveness of CSP projects in the Chilean market. A sensitivity analysis was performed obtaining the impact of efficiency improvements and capex reductions per component on the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE). The maximum allowable trade-off limit for each technical improvement (capex increase or plant factor reduction) was calculated.