Techno-Economic Analysis of sCO2 and sCO2-ORC Cycles for Solar Tower Power Systems with Particle-Based Thermal Energy Storage

This study analyzes the techno-economic feasibility of integrating particle-based solar tower systems with supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) power cycles. It develops thermodynamic and techno-economic models for four cycle configurations: RC-ORC, RC, RE-ORC, and RE. A one-dimensional design approach for printed circuit heat exchangers (PCHEs) is applied to the critical components to achieve performance and cost estimates that are realistic. For cost robustness, outlier estimates are mitigated by employing multiple cost correlations with a trimmed-mean approach. The main contributions of this study are that it demonstrates the primary heat exchanger (PHX) is one of the dominant components in the total system investment, exceeding >50% in all configurations, and it analyzes 48

pure organic Rankine cycle (ORC) working fluids, where Cyclopropane and Trans-butene were determined to be the most economically viable candidates for RC-ORC and RE-ORC, respectively. This means that when selecting an ORC fluid, net power output should be considered in conjunction with the heat transfer and flow characteristics as they pertain to the costs of the intermediate heat exchangers. A scale analysis indicates that specific investment costs decrease significantly between 50 and 300 MW system capacities; however, the investment costs decrease at a diminishing rate for RC-ORC and RE-ORC configurations below 300 MW to ~1756.64 $/kW. Therefore, it is necessary to adopt cost-effective approaches to reducing PHX costs, to select

ORC fluids that center around the heat exchanger, and to scale systems appropriately to improve the economic feasibility of these solar tower power systems.

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