Title:
Comparative Analysis of the Environmental Performance of a Parabolic Trough Concentrating Solar Power (Csp) Plant Operating with Biogas or Natural Gas
Author(s):
San Miguel, G., Corona, B.
Document(s):
Paper
Poster
Abstract:
Commercial CSP plants usually incorporate one or various natural gas (NG) auxiliary boilers that operate in parallel to the solar field to facilitate start up operations, provide system stability, avoid freezing of heat transfer fluid (HTF) and increase generation capacity. An alternative investigated in this paper involves replacing the NG with biogas in order to produce electricity that is fully renewable and free from fossil fuel inputs. This paper provides a comparative analysis of the environmental performance of a CSP plant using NG and biogas from different substrates (biowaste, sewage sludge and grass) as backup fuel. The analysis evaluates two operating strategies: solar-only, with minimum technically viable contribution from non-solar energy resources; and hybrid mode, where 12 % of the electricity derives from non-solar resources, as permitted by Spanish legislation. The investigation is based on the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of a commercial wet-cooled 50 MWe CSP with parabolic trough technology according to ISO 14040. The results showed that NG is responsible for most of the environmental damage associated with the operation of the plant in hybrid mode. Replacing NG with biogas resulted in a significant improvement of the environmental performance of the plant, which may be attributed to a reduction in the following impact categories: natural land transformation; depletion of fossil resources; and climate change. However, despite the renewable nature of the fuel, other environmental categories like human toxicity, eutrophication, acidification and marine ecotoxicity scored higher when using biogas.
Keywords:
biogas, life cycle assessment (LCA), natural gas, concentrated solar power (CSP)
Topic:
Biomass Policies, Markets and Sustainability
Subtopic:
Environmental impacts of bioenergy
Event:
21st European Biomass Conference and Exhibition
Session:
5AV.2.17
Pages:
1881 - 1887
ISBN:
978-88-89407-53-0
Paper DOI:
10.5071/21stEUBCE2013-5AV.2.17
Price:
FREE
