Estimating the capacity value of concentrating solar power plants: A case study of the southwestern United States

Journal Article · Fri Jan 27 04:00:00 EST 2012 · IEEE Transactions on Power Systems

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/TPWRS.2011.2179071· OSTI ID:1354733

Madaeni, Seyed Hossein ^[1]; Sioshansi, Ramteen ^[2]; Denholm, Paul ^[3]

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1. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States); The Ohio State University
2. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States)
3. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Here, we estimate the capacity value of concentrating solar power (CSP) plants without thermal energy storage in the southwestern U.S. Our results show that CSP plants have capacity values that are between 45% and 95% of maximum capacity, depending on their location and configuration. We also examine the sensitivity of the capacity value of CSP to a number of factors and show that capacity factor-based methods can provide reasonable approximations of reliability-based estimates.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 1354733
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1043743
• Journal Information: IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, Journal Name: IEEE Transactions on Power Systems Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 27; ISSN 0885-8950
• Publisher: IEEE
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
capacity value
concentrating solar power
energy analysis
equivalent conventional power