Economic (Cost-Benefit) Analysis of Power Generation from Commercial Reinforced Concrete Solar Chimney Power Plant Built in the Desert Regions of Iran

This paper expands a model different from existing models to analyze the cost and benefit of areinforced concrete solar chimney power plant (RCSCPP) built in the desert regions of Iran.Based on the model and some assumptions for values of parameters, this paper calculates totalnet present value (TNPV) and the minimum electricity price in each phase by dividing the wholeservice period into four phases. The results showed that the minimum electricity price in the firstphase is higher than the current market price of electricity, but the minimum prices in the otherphases are far less than the current market price. The analysis indicated that huge advantages ofthe RCSCPP over coal-fired power plants could be embodied in phases 2–4. In addition, thesensitivity analysis performed in this paper discovered that TNPV is very sensitive to changes inthe solar electricity price and inflation rate, but responds only slightly to changes in carboncredits price, income tax rate and interest rate of loans. Our analysis predicts that RCSCPPshave very good application prospect.