Economic Evaluation of Concentrating Solar Power with Energy Storage Plant in Power Spot Market

Concentrating solar power has drawn continuous attention from generation companies as a renewable generation technology. In this paper, an economic evaluation method for PV-CSP plants is constructed employing LCOE as the primary economic index. A chronological market simulation model of the power spot market based on SCUC and SCED with the objective of minimizing system production cost is used for the method. An energy flow-based model of PV-CSP plant is constructed for simulating the optimal operation of PV-CSP plants in the power spot market. The output of market simulation is applied for the PV-CSP plant model to provide price signal and curtailment information that is a basis of optimal operation of thermal energy storage. The economic viability of PV-CSP plants is assessed using LCOE. A comparative analysis for 4 sets of PV and CSP plants demonstrates that PV-CSP plants exhibit lower LCOE than CSP plants. The proposed economic evaluation method provides a comprehensive method for economic evaluations of the PV-CSP plant for generation companies.