Techno-Economic Comparison of Solar Thermal and PV for Heat Generation in Industrial Processes
Abstract
The interest for renewable based water heating via electricity has increased in recent years due to the reducing costs of photovoltaics (PV) coupled with their inherent ease of installation, especially for domestic hot water applications. In larger scale solar thermal (ST) systems, namely for industrial process heat demand, solar heating has only been done by thermal collectors to date. Given the regular cost reductions for PV, this technology may one day supplant certain segments of the industrial heating market, if renewable based heating is desired. To determine if and when this may happen, a comparative analysis between PV and ST heating systems for three industrial processes operating at different temperatures was undertaken. Results demonstrated that for applications operating below 100 °C, ST systems will still provide cheaper thermal energy as compared to PV installed between1... 2 €/Wp. To generate saturated steam at 150 °C, PV systems can provide a better economic solution when a parabolic trough ST system specific investment is more than 700 €/m2 turnkey while being located in a region with less than 1,700 kWh/m2a beam surface irradiation. In lower irradiation regions, the ST system cost must be even lower to compete. When PV system costs reduce to1 €/Wp, concentrating systems must reduce their costs below 400 €/m2 to have cost superiority.
Keywords
Industrial process heat, Pv, Solar thermal, Economic comparison