Abstract
Climate change and water scarcity are important issues for today's power sector. To inform capacity expansion decisions, hybrid life cycle assessment is used to evaluate a reference design of a parabolic trough concentrating solar power (CSP) facility located in Daggett, California, along four sustainability metrics: life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water consumption, cumulative energydemand (CED), and energy payback time (EPBT). This wet-cooled, 103 MW plant utilizes mined nitrate salts in its two-tank, thermal energy storage (TES) system. Design alternatives of dry-cooling, a thermocline TES, and synthetically-derived nitrate salt are evaluated. During its life cycle, the reference CSP plant is estimated to emit 26 g CO2eq per kWh, consume 4.7 L/kWh of water, and demand 0.40 MJeq/kWh of energy, resulting in an EPBT of approximately 1 year. The dry-cooled alternative is estimated to reduce life cycle water consumption by 77% but increase life cycle GHG emissions and CED by 8%. Synthetic nitrate salts may increase life cycle GHG emissions by 52% compared to mined. Switching from two-tank to thermocline TES configuration reduces life cycle GHG emissions, mostsignificantly for plants using synthetically-derived nitrate salts. CSP can significantly reduce GHG emissions compared to fossil-fueled generation; however, dry-cooling may be required in many locations to minimize water consumption.
Original language | American English |
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Number of pages | 11 |
State | Published - 2011 |
Event | SolarPACES 2011 - Granada, Spain Duration: 20 Sep 2011 → 23 Sep 2011 |
Conference
Conference | SolarPACES 2011 |
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City | Granada, Spain |
Period | 20/09/11 → 23/09/11 |
NREL Publication Number
- NREL/CP-6A20-52186
Keywords
- energy payback
- EPBT
- GHG
- greenhouse gases (GHG)
- LCA
- water consumption