Abstract
The hybridization of concentrating solar power (CSP) and photovoltaics (PV) can enable dispatchable renewable electricity generation at a lower price than current stand-alone CSP systems. However, designing a CSP-PV hybrid system can be challenging because of the many degrees of freedom in design that affect the internal and external system interactions and trade-offs. We develop a methodology to determine optimal designs for CSP-PV hybrids by implementing NLopt’s derivative-free, or “black-box,” algorithms around pre-existing CSP-PV hybrid simulation software that utilizes the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s System Advisor Model (SAM); we then employ a dispatch optimization model to determine operational decisions that maximize a plant’s profits. We present optimal designs for CSP-PV hybrid systems dispatching against four time-of-delivery (ToD) pricing structures. NLopt’s algorithms can improve the base case design’s power purchase agreement (PPA) price by 15% to 21%, depending on the ToD pricing structure. In addition, we present the resulting optimal CSP-PV hybrid design’s annual performance metrics, which tend to have capacity factors between 50% and 62%, but are able to generate electricity during the year’s highest-valued periods about 90% of the time. Lastly, we investigate the trade-offs between capacity factor and PPA price using Pareto fronts and demonstrate that, for some ToD pricing structures, the system capacity factor can increase by 20% but at the expense of a 2% increase in PPA price.
Original language | American English |
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Number of pages | 8 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 11 Dec 2020 |
Event | 2019 International Conference on Concentrating Solar Power and Chemical Energy Systems, SolarPACES 2019 - Daegu, Korea, Republic of Duration: 1 Oct 2019 → 4 Oct 2019 |
Conference
Conference | 2019 International Conference on Concentrating Solar Power and Chemical Energy Systems, SolarPACES 2019 |
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Country/Territory | Korea, Republic of |
City | Daegu |
Period | 1/10/19 → 4/10/19 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2020 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved.
NREL Publication Number
- NREL/CP-5700-78823
Keywords
- black-box
- capacity factor
- concentrated solar power
- electricity generation
- photovoltaics
- public policy and governance
- software engineering