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