Techno-Economic Assessment of Concentrated Solarand Photovoltaic Power Plants in Brazil

Abstract

The need for a diverse energy matrix has been promotinga favorable environment for integrating new renewable energy sources,such as Concentrated Solar Power plants (CSPs). Nonetheless, as aconsequence of the incipient solar generation via CSPs in Brazil,there is a unsatisfactory number of researches that handle technicaland economic assessments of CSP plants performance on this country.Given this scenario, this study proposes an assessment of the techno-economic viability of the implementation of 100 MW CSP plants inBrazil, considering the Solar Tower (ST) systems, Parabolic TroughCollectors (PTC), Linear Fresnel (LFR) Reflectors and Dish Stirling(DS) Systems, and comparing the results to a photovoltaic (PV) plant.This study utilizes project data of power plants collected from therelevant literature and applies it to the city of Bom Jesus da Lapa,Brazil. The CSP techno-economic viability is evaluated through theanalysis of the annual energy generated, as well as the economicviability indicators, such as the Net Present Value, the Internal Rate ofReturn, the Discounted Payback and the Levelized Cost of Energy, andthrough a single-variable sensitivity analysis. This analysis employs thediscounted cash flow model, considering the energy trade in a RegulatedContracting Environment.