Making the sun shine at night: comparing the cost of dispatchable concentrating solar power and photovoltaics with storage

Figures & data

Figure 1. Yearly growth of cumulative installed capacity (own elaboration based on IRENA (2019a) and CSP.guru (2020))

Figure 2. Conceptualization of PV combined with battery storage and CSP (solar field, receiver, thermal energy storage, and power block). Power flow in direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC). Solar radiation components global horizontal irradiation (GHI) and direct normal irradiation (DNI). Own illustration using graphical content created by Arthur Shlain (2019) from Noun Project

Figure 3. Conversion process from the collection of solar radiation to the final conversion to AC electricity and relevant cost parameters. Own illustration based on Lovegrove (2018)

Figure 4. Solar profiles (GHI and DNI) for the modeled day and location in the Sierra Nevada in Spain. Day 1 in week 29 of a typical meteorological year based on the years 2007–2016

Figure 5. Electricity generation [MW_el] by PV and the battery system and storage content [MWh_el]

Table 1. Investment cost assumptions by component. Medium and low cost are cost development expectations up to 2050. All costs retrieved from the literature were converted to €_2018. If there was no designated year mentioned for the cost assumptions, the year of publication was taken into account. Inflation rates are derived from Eurostat (2019). Exchange rates refer to the last day of the respective year from ÖNB (2019)

Technology	Unit	Cost scenario	Modeled investment costs (€2018 per unit)	Literature sources	Costs in literature (€2018 per unit)
Utility-scale PV	kWel	Current Cost	900	(De Vita et al., 2018) (Solar PV high potential)	729
				(Lovegrove et al., 2018) (cost for 2017)	1239
				(Fu, Feldman, & Margolis, 2018)	987
				(NREL, 2019)	848
		Medium Cost	650	(De Vita et al., 2018) (assumption for2040 – medium potential)	541
				NREL, 2019	594
		Low Cost	400	De Vita et al., 2018 (assumption for 2050 – very high potential)	424
				(NREL, 2019)	297
Li-Ion Battery	kWhel	Current Cost	500	(De Vita et al., 2018) (cost in 2015)	625
				(Fleer et al., 2016) (capacity-specific price for 2025)	510
				(Cole & Frazier, 2019) (complete 4-hour battery system)	332
				(Lovegrove et al., 2018) (2017 cost)	506
				(Tsiropoulos, Tarvydas, & Lebedeva, 2018)	570
		Medium Cost	300	(Fleer et al., 2016)	357
				(Cole & Frazier, 2019) (complete 4-hour battery system, mid cost scenario for 2049)	138
				(De Vita et al., 2018) (2030 cost)	264
				(Tsiropoulos et al., 2018)	425
		Low Cost	100	(Cole & Frazier, 2019) (complete 4-hour battery system, low cost scenario for 2049)	68
				(De Vita et al., 2018) (ultimate cost)	234
				(Tsiropoulos et al., 2018)	250
Solar field & receiver system	m²	Current Cost	300	(Turchi et al., 2019)	183
				(Dieckmann et al., 2017) (2015 cost - parabolic trough incl. receiver)	196
				(Mehos et al., 2016) (2015 cost)	324
				(ESTELA, DCSP, & Protermosolar, 2015) (2015 cost)	209
		Medium Cost	225	(Dieckmann et al., 2017) (2025 cost - parabolic trough incl. receiver)	150
				(ESTELA et al., 2015) (2025 cost)	133
		Low Cost	150	(Turchi et al., 2019) (solar field for tower plant 75 USD/m^2 + 150 USD/kWth receiver)	149
Thermal energy storage	kWhth	Current Cost	40	(Turchi et al., 2019) (parabolic trough)	54
				(Turchi et al., 2019) (power tower)	19
				(Mehos et al., 2016)	53
				(Wang, 2019)	44
				(Dieckmann et al., 2017) (2015 cost - trough)	36
				(Dieckmann et al., 2017) (2015 cost - tower)	22
				(ESTELA et al., 2015) (cost for 2015)	29
		Medium Cost	25	(Wang, 2019)	22
				(Dieckmann et al., 2017) (2025 cost - trough)	22
				(Dieckmann et al., 2017) (2025 cost - tower)	19
				(ESTELA et al., 2015) (2025 cost)	20
		Low Cost	10	(Mehos et al., 2016)	15
				(Wang, 2019)	11
Power block	kWel	Current Cost	1000	(Kurup & Turchi, 2015)	1115
				(Turchi et al., 2019) (Power tower)	882
				(Turchi et al., 2019) (Parabolic trough)	772
		Medium Cost	900	(Dieckmann et al., 2017) (2025 cost)	933
		Low Cost	800	(ESTELA et al., 2015) (2025 cost)	760
Electric heater	kWth	Current, Medium, and Low Cost	347	(De Vita et al., 2018)	347

Table 2. Fixed operation and maintenance costs, annually by component. Medium and low cost are cost development expectations up to 2050

Technology	Cost scenario	Modeled fix O&M costs (€2018 /kW)	Literature sources	Costs in literature (€2018 /kW)
Utility-scale PV	Current Cost	19	(De Vita et al., 2018) (Solar PV high potential)	14
			(NREL, 2019)	17
			(Bolinger & Seel, 2018)	27
	Medium Cost	13	(De Vita et al., 2018) (Solar PV high potential)	12
			(NREL, 2019)	7
	Low Cost	7	(De Vita et al., 2018) (Solar PV high potential)	11
			(NREL, 2019)	3
Li-Ion Battery	Current Cost	50	(De Vita et al., 2018) (2015 costs)	42
			(Lovegrove et al., 2018) (2017 costs)	62
	Medium Cost	32.5	(De Vita et al., 2018) (2030 costs)	16
	Low Cost	15	(De Vita et al., 2018) (ultimate costs)	14
CSP	Current Cost	75	(Bolinger & Seel, 2018) (just solar collector field, thus maybe not fully representative)	52
			(Turchi et al., 2019)	58
			(De Vita et al., 2018)	126
			(ESTELA et al., 2015)	51
	Medium Cost	60	(De Vita et al., 2018)	103
			(ESTELA et al., 2015)	48
	Low Cost	45	(De Vita et al., 2018)	80
			(ESTELA et al., 2015)	46
Electric heater	Current, Medium, and Low Cost	5.2	(De Vita et al., 2018)	5.2

Table 3. Installed capacities for all technology components depending on the storage hours

	Storage hours [h]	1	2	4	8	12	16	20	24
PV+BESS (all scenarios)	PV [MWel]	12	23	46	93	139	186	232	279
	Battery [MWhel]	100	199	399	798	1197	1596	1995	2393
CSP+TES (all scenarios)	Solar receiver [MWth]	21	41	82	165	247	330	412	495
	Thermal storage [MWhth]	239	478	957	1914	2871	3828	4785	5742
	Power block [MWel]	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100
PV+TES (medium cost scenario)	Thermal storage [MWhth]	239	478	957	1914	2871	3828	4785	5742
	PV [MWel]	24	49	97	195	292	390	487	585
	Electric heater [MWth]	26	53	106	212	318	424	530	635
	Power block [MWel]	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100

Figure 6. Specific cost for increasing storage hours for PV+BESS, CSP+TES and PV+TES for three cost scenarios. PV+BESS is always the most economic solution for short storage times. CSP+TES becomes competitive after 2–3 h (current cost) and 4–10 h (future cost projections)

Figure 7. Shares of overall CSP investment costs for the components solar field + receiver, TES, and power block depending on the storage hours. Current cost (left bar), medium cost (middle bar), and low cost (right bar) scenario. The share of the power block decreases significantly with increasing storage hours

Figure 8. Shares of overall investment costs for the components PV and BESS depending on the storage hours. Current cost (left bar), medium cost (middle bar), and low cost (right bar) scenario. In contrast to CSP+TES, the ratio between the two components PV and battery stays almost the same for all storage hours

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Availability of data

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3939412.