Dry cooling of concentrating solar power (CSP) plants, an economic competitive option for the desert regions of the MENA region

By comparing the wet cooled reference Andasol power plant in Spain with the same but dry cooled power plant in Jordan, following outputs are resulted: the overall efficiency of the dry cooled plant in Ma'an is reduced by 3.1%, the water consumption reduced by 92%. The energy yield increased by 21.8%, and the LCOE reduced by 18.8%. The results of this study prove that dry cooled CSP power plants in sites with significantly high DNI values is an attractive economic and technical option to be considered in future planning of new projects.