Enhancing the performance of an aerosols-affected solar power tower in arid regions: A case study of wind turbines hybridization

The aim of this research is to investigate the effect of the two most important threats to the solar power towers' (SPT) performance, i.e. aerosols' density and water scarcity, on the SPT feasibility in arid regions. The study is the first attempt to include the site adapted aerosols effect on the SPT’s reflected irradiance and comprehensively investigate several new configurations aiming at optimizing the performance and associated costs. Results show that the inclusion of this effect causes an Annual Energy Generation (AEG) reduction of up to 9.1 %. Further, the water consumption analysis is realized based on four different power cycle cooling options, i.e. wet, dry and two hybrid scenarios. Then, a hybridization with Wind Turbines (WT) is proposed as a potential solution to improve the performance of the SPT. The SPT-WT hybridization has been realized with the assistance of an in-house developed algorithm where key design parameters such as solar multiple, thermal energy storage, SPT and WT capacities have been varied over different ranges. It has been found that the configurations with bigger WT share show clear improvements in the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), water consumption and AEG and that’s only when the TES is excluded. However, this comes with a penalty on the capacity factor (CF) which witnesses considerable decreases. The results of this study provide new important information that can be used in conceptual engineering studies and inform policy making.