Techno-economic optimization for the design of solar chimney power plants

This paper aims to propose a methodology for optimization of solar chimney power plants taking into account the techno-economic parameters. The indicator used for optimization is the comparison between the actual achieved simple payback period for the design and the minimum possible (optimum) simple payback period as a reference. An optimization model was executed for different twelve designs in the range 5-200 MW to cover reinforced concrete chimney, sloped collector, and floating chimney. The height of the chimney was optimized and the associated collector area was calculated accordingly. Relationships between payback periods, electricity price, and the peak power capacity of each power plant were developed. The resulted payback periods for the floating chimney power plants were the shortest compared to the other studied designs. For a solar chimney power plant with 100 MW at electricity price 0.10 USD/kWh, the simple payback period for the reference case was 4.29 years for floating chimney design compared to 23.47 and 16.88 years for reinforced concrete chimney and sloped collector design, respectively. After design optimization for 100 MW power plant of each of reinforced concrete, sloped collector, and floating chimney, a save of 19.63, 2.22, and 2.24 million USD, respectively from the initial cost of the reference case is achieved. Sensitivity analysis was conducted in this study to evaluate the impacts of varied running cost, solar radiation, and electricity price on the payback periods of solar chimney power plant. Floating chimney design is still performing after applying the highest ratio of annual running cost to the annual revenue. The sensitivity analysis showed that at the same solar radiation and electricity price, the simple payback period for 200 MW with sloped collector design would almost have the double simple payback period for 5 MW with floating chimney design.