Technoeconomic Analysis of Alternative Solarized s CO2 Brayton Cycle Configurations

Abstract

This paper evaluates cost and performance tradeoffs of alternative supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) closedloop Brayton cycle configurations with a concentrated solar heat source. Alternative sCO2 power cycle configurations include simple, recompression, cascaded, and partial cooling cycles. Results show that the simple closedloop Brayton cycle yielded the lowest powerblock component costs while allowing variable temperature differentials across the sCO2 heating source, depending on the level of recuperation. Lower temperature differentials led to higher sensible storage costs, but cycle configurations with lower temperature differentials (higher recuperation) yielded higher cycle efficiencies and lower solar collector and receiver costs. The cycles with higher efficiencies (simple recuperated, recompression, and partial cooling) yielded the lowest overall solar and powerblock component costs for a prescribed power output.