Alternative cycles based on carbon dioxide for central receiver solar power plants

In this work, the use of supercritical and transcritical carbon dioxide cycles for this application is proposed. Three different cycles are considered, the first two of which are stand-alone closed cycle gas turbines using carbon dioxide. The third proposal is a combined cycle that comprises a topping carbon dioxide gas turbine and a bottoming Organic Rankine Cycle. Preliminary results show that these cycles are promising technologies for solar tower plants, having the potential to compete in terms of efficiency and costs with other conventional technologies.