http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
Life cycle assessment of a parabolic trough concentrating solar power plant and impacts of key design alternatives
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (U.S.)
Climate change and water scarcity are important issues for today's power sector. To inform capacity expansion decisions, hybrid life cycle assessment is used to evaluate a reference design of a parabolic trough concentrating solar power (CSP) facility located in Daggett, California, along four sustainability metrics: life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water consumption, cumulative energy demand (CED), and energy payback time (EPBT). This wet-cooled, 103 MW plant utilizes mined nitrate salts in its two-tank, thermal energy storage (TES) system. Design alternatives of dry-cooling, a thermocline TES, and synthetically-derived nitrate salt are evaluated. During its life cycle, the reference CSP plant is estimated to emit 26 g CO2eq per kWh, consume 4.7 L/kWh of water, and demand 0.40 MJeq/kWh of energy, resulting in an EPBT of approximately 1 year. The dry-cooled alternative is estimated to reduce life cycle water consumption by 77% but increase life cycle GHG emissions and CED by 8%. Synthetic nitrate salts may increase life cycle GHG emissions by 52% compared to mined. Switching from two-tank to thermocline TES configuration reduces life cycle GHG emissions, most significantly for plants using synthetically-derived nitrate salts. CSP can significantly reduce GHG emissions compared to fossil-fueled generation; however, dry-cooling may be required in many locations to minimize water consumption.
Garvin A. Heath and Craig S. Turchi [and] John J. Burkhardt III.
Title from title screen (viewed Oct. 10, 2011).
"To be presented at SolarPACES 2011, Granada, Spain, September 20 - 23, 2011."
Full text available via Internet in .pdf format. Adobe Acrobat Reader required.
Sponsored by National Renewable Energy Laboratory contract no. DE-AC36-08GO28308
Conference paper (National Renewable Energy Laboratory (U.S.)) ; 6 A 20-52186