Comparison of Parabolic Trough Concentrated Solar Power and Photovoltaic Plants with and without Energy Storage using NSGA-II

Solar energy-based technologies, such as concentrated solar power (CSP) and photovoltaic (PV) plants, have been the focus of comparison by literature to date. However, insufficient techno-economic comparison was observed when both power plants were integrated with energy storage systems (ESS). Hence, the objective of this study is to compare the performance and financial metrics of an optimized utility-scale parabolic trough (PT) CSP plant with and without thermal energy storage (TES), and a PV plant with and without battery energy storage system (BESS). Both solar technologies were optimized using the elitist non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) by varying the key decision parameters that significantly contribute to the system’s annual energy production and levelized cost of energy (LCOE). Results showed that the storage-less PV plant is more economical, but the storage-less PT CSP plant has better technical performance. Despite that, the integration of ESS made the PT CSP-TES plant more competitive than the PV-BESS in terms of performance metrics and net present value, but the PV-BESS plant is still more cost-competitive due to its low values of LCOE and net capital cost.