Life cycle assessment of a future central receiver solar power plant and autonomous operated heliostat concepts

Indirect life cycle emissions excluding fossil fuel co-firing and thus associated with the life-cycle of the power plant components show, that the conventional solar field is the main contributor to GWP with 9.5 gCO2eq/kWhel. Results for both autonomous concepts demonstrate, that reductions in the impact on climate change are at about 10% compared to the solar field with conventional heliostats. Thus it is demonstrated, that heliostat concepts with an autonomous renewable energy supply lead to considerable reductions in life cycle emissions.