Techno-economic analysis of a foil-based solar collector driven electricity and fresh water generation system

For medium-scale dispatchable (on demand) power and fresh water generation, a concentrated solar energy powered system with thermal energy storage is an attractive option. However, currently used concentrated solar power technologies (parabolic trough collector, solar power tower, linear Fresnel reflector) use heavy and very expensive glass mirrors and receivers. Recently, a novel micro-structured polymer foil-based concentrating solar collector system, with the advantages of a low installation cost and a low operation and maintenance cost, has been proposed. This system, which generate heat by focusing sunlight like magnifying glasses, can be effectively used for applications with temperatures up to about 350 °C. Techno-economic analysis and optimization of a micro-structured polymer foil-based concentrating solar collector powered organic Rankine cycle based electricity and multi-effect distillation based fresh water generation system is presented in this paper. The proposed system has a lot of potential for the places with electricity and water crisis. The results indicate that cyclopentane is the most appropriate organic Rankine cycle working fluid for the plant, achieving a levelized cost of electricity of 0.116 €/kWhe and levelized cost of fresh water of 1.13 €/m³ for Antofagasta, Chile and 0.163 €/kWhe and 1.62 €/m³ for Cape Town, South Africa.