Analysis and comparison between a concentrating solar and a photovoltaic power plant

The high variability of the direct normal radiation during the year in southern Italy may cause several problems in CSP facilities, mainly related to the wide range of energy input from the sun. The more uniform and higher values of the solar radiation in the Egyptian location mitigates this problem and allows achieving higher efficiencies than in southern Italy. In most cases the electricity produced by the CSP plant is higher than that produced by a similar PV plant, because the presence of the storage system guarantees the continuity of electricity production even without solar radiation. An economic analysis based on the estimation of the levelized electricity cost (LEC) for both CSP and PV power plants located both in south of Italy and Egypt was carried out in order to investigate which is the most cost effective solution. In all the cases considered, the CSP facilities resulted the best option in terms of cost of electricity produced due to the continuity of energy production during the night hours.