Economic analysis of a 1 MW solar chimney power plant in Tozeur, Tunisia

This work proposes a methodology for optimizing Solar Chimney Power Plant (SCPP) geometric parameters (chimney height, collector area and chimney radius for fixed values of canopy height) and also presents a framework for a combined techno-economic analysis of an optimized 1 MW SCPP to be implemented in Tozeur, located in the south of Tunisia. A CFD model was used to investigate the influence of the chimney height and radius and the collector radius on the plant's electricity production and these were used in a cost estimation method to obtain an optimized design of the 1 MW SCPP. Subsequently, an economic analysis, based on the Levelized Cost Of Electricity (LCOE) was carried out for the optimized 1 MW SCPP configuration. The optimization procedure yielded an optimum collector radius of 452 m and a corresponding chimney height of 462 m and radius of 5 m to produce 2.1 GWh of electricity per year. For an interest rate of 3%, an inflation rate of 6% and a lifetime of 40 years, the price of electrical energy produced and fed into the national grid is 0.105 TND/kWh. The SCPP would avoid the emission of 480.9 tons/year of CO2 during its 40 year lifetime.