Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) Plants Fit Perfectly with Chilean Mining Industry
Abstract
Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), in conjunction with Photovoltaic (PV) technology, allows providing clean, economic and reliable power supply to mining operations by means of optimal hybrid designs. This concept leverales ultra-low PV’s Levelized Cost Of Electricity (LCOE) during solar hours with economic and highly flexible CSP technology to cover for intra-solar-day variability of PV availability and night hour supply of power. The present work provides an approach to estimate the cost effectiveness of a greenfield co-located hybrid CSP-PV system to supply a real mining operation electric demand profile using real meteorological data and up to date national cost structures using mathematical programming and modeling.