Economic Comparison of PV Parks with Concentrated Solar Power Plants: Economic Feasibility Comparison of PV Parks and Solar Thermal (CSP) Plants at Various Geographic Locations

Increased investment and interest in solar technologies have led to diversification in the large scale solar power plant market. With increasing options comes the challenge of selecting the optimum solution for the corresponding project location and specifications. Considered in this report are Fresnel, Parabolic Trough and Photovoltaic type solar power plants. The financing structure, along with current cost information, is considered in such a way as to provide a standard and fair comparison across the technologies. In order to perform the calculations, a software tool was developed to calculate the annual energy outputs of the various plants (at differing locations) and, with the developed investment costs, to calculate the resulting Levelized Electricity Cost (LEC) the basis of comparison in this report.