Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Solar Rankine Cycle (SRC) powered by Linear Fresnel solar field and
integrated with Multi Effect Desalination (MED) system
Ighbal Baniasad Askari a, Mehran Ameri a, b, *
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran
b
Energy and Environmental Engineering Research Center, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The Linear Fresnel (LF) solar filed was considered to support part of the required thermal energy of the
Received 28 March 2016 Solar Rankin Cycle (SRC). Multi Effect Desalination (MED) system was applied in order to produce
Received in revised form distillate water by using the SRC thermal energy. Two typical low temperature MED systems with 14
6 January 2017
effects and two Gain Output Ratios (GORs) of 9.8 and 12 were considered to be feed by the steam (70
C)
Accepted 10 October 2017
Available online 10 October 2017
at the outlet of the turbine replacing the condenser of SRC. Two thermal storage capacities of 6 and 12 h
were considered in SRC calculations. Two LF solar fields were considered to operate with different mass
flow rates and aperture areas. An economic analysis was also used to determine the water and electricity
Keywords:
MED
costs of the SRC/MED plant. The electricity unit cost of the SRC/MED plant was compared to electricity
Linear Fresnel cost of a reference SRC plant (SRC/Ref) without MED and comprising a once-through cooling condenser
Solar Rankine Cycle with cooling temperature of 35
C. The amount of annual fuel saving and the unit cost of the water and
Thermal storage electricity were determined under different scenarios of MED unit GORs and for two thermal storage
Natural gas fuel capacities.
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Currently, 1% of the world populations are dependent to the
desalinated water and it would be expected 14% of the world
population will be encountered by water scarcity by 2025. The
required drinking water of the countries with dry climates would
rely on the collecting rainfall behind dams or producing the fresh
water by using the desalination industry. Climate change adversely
affects the water resources of a region due to the frequent droughts.
The longtime droughts would usually happen in the regions with
high solar radiation level. Therefore, the more fresh water shortage
is related to the regions with high solar radiation levels such as
Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries. Regional droughts
are being exacerbated by climate change and the limited non-
renewable groundwater resources could not sustain the growing
population of MENA countries and their increasingly water and
energy intensive lifestyles. Annual abstractions of fresh water from
the world's lakes, rivers and ground aquifers amount to 4000 km3/
year [1]. The annual renewable water per capita of Iran and MENA
* Corresponding author. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of En-
gineering, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, P.O. Box 76175-133, Kerman, Iran.
E-mail address: ameri_mm@uk.ac.ir (M. Ameri).
are respectively, 1700 m3 and 1300 m3, which are slightly lower
than the water threshold crisis of 1000 m3 [2] and quiet below the
global value of 7000 m3 [3]. Useful information regarding the
desalination plants installed in the coastal areas of Iran during the
period of 2000e2014 has been reported in Ref. [4]. Based on that
research, 19000desalination plants have been installed in Iran, until
2014, in order to produce 60 Mm3 of fresh water per day. Reverse
Osmosis (RO) and Multi Effect Desalination (MED) are the major
desalination technologies that are used in Iran; especially for in-
dustrial applications.
The desalination technologies mainly classified to the two cat-
egories of phase change thermal process techniques such as MED
and Multi Stage Flash (MSF) and the membrane or single-phase
processes such as RO technology.
The low energy consumption, longer operation life and lower
capital costs of the MED technique make it competitive with RO and
MSF. That is why the MED technology has been received a great
attention by the researchers over the resent years [5]. MED and RO
are the most promising desalination technologies for the coupling
to solar power plants in order to produce fresh water and elec-
tricity. The construction of large-size power generation units (more
than 20e30 MW) is today the preferred choice due to the best
trade-off between capital costs and overall conversion efficiency

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2017.10.033
0960-1481/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 I.B. Askari, M. Ameri / Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70 53

Nomenclature m_ Heat transfer fluid mass flow rate, kg/s

N Number of project Life time
Afield Solar field aperture area (m2) n Number of effects
CCAPEX ðDÞ Capital annualized direct costs, $ NGB Natural gas boiler
CCAPEX ðIDÞ Capital annualized indirect costs, $ Pev Entrained vapor pressure (kPa)
Cel Electricity costs, $ Ps Discharged vapor pressure (kPa)
Cf Fuel costs, $ Q Specific heat consumption, kJ/kg
CIns Insurance costs, $ Q absorbed Absorbed solar energy, W/m2
CL Labor costs, $ Q hl HTF Heat transfer fluid heat loss, W/m2
CRF Capital recovery factor Q hlpiping Heat lost from solar field pipes, W/m2
CSP Spare parts replacement costs, $ Q LFR Solar field useful thermal output, W/m2
CSP Concentrating solar power plant Ra Entertainment ratio
DNI Direct Normal Irradiation, (W/m2) SCth Specific Cost of Thermal energy ($/kWht)
DSG Direct steam generation SCWth Specific Cost of Water associated with Thermal energy
GOR Gain Output Ratio cost ($/m3)
hin Enthalpy of the heat transfer fluid at the inlet (kJ/kg) Tamb Ambient temperature,
C
hout Enthalpy of the heat transfer fluid at the outlet (kJ/kg) TAWP Total annual water production, m3/yr
HTF Heat Transfer Fluid TAEG Total annual electricity generation, kWh/yr
IAMt Transversal incident angle modifier TES Thermal energy storage
IAML Longitudinal incident angle modifier Tin Temperature of the heat transfer fluid at the inlet,
C
i Interest rate (%) Vw Wind speed, m/s
L Receiver length, m
LCOE Levelized cost of electricity, $/kWh Greek symbols
LCOW Levelized cost of water, $/m3 hopt Optical efficiency
Lf Focal distance, m hendloss End loss efficiency
LF Linear Fresnel solar field qi The angle of incidence, degree
LF1 Linear Fresnel solar field of number 1
LF2 Linear Fresnel solar field of number 2

[6].
The integration of the MED and RO units to the Concentrated
Solar Power (CSP) plant has been investigated by G. Iaquaniello
et al. [7]. Part of the electricity generated by CSP plant has been
used to power the RO unit. Also, the low temperature steam
extracted from the steam turbine of the plant has been utilized to
power the MED unit. The combination of the MED and RO process
in the same facility has been shown to have several advantages. The
economic analysis has been performed for the hybrid CSP/MED/RO
plant with two different water production capacities. The
increasing of the project lifetime from 20 years to 30 has been
shown to decrease the water production costs by about 8.8%.
A small CSP plant coupled to an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC)
with a novel configuration has been investigated by M. Borunda
et al. [8]. In that work, the thermal energy of the CSP plant has been
considered to be directly used as the thermal source to feed the
power block and to charge the thermal storage tank of the plant. A
detailed thermo-exergic analysis has been made on the ORC and
thermal storage system of that study.
The multi effect distillation-vapor compression (MED/TVC) and
multi effect distillation-mechanical vapor compression (MED/MVC)
technologies have been considered by Sharaf et al. [9]. The direct
steam generated from the PTC solar thermal field has been used as
the thermal source of the MED/TVC desalination system. Also, the
required electricity of the MED/MVC desalination unit has been
considered to be powered by the output electricity of a Solar
Organic Rankine Cycle (SORC). A case study has been performed
according to 4545 m3/day of distillate product. The results of that
study have shown that the water production costs of the MED/TVC
and MED/MVC systems are obtained as 1.5$/m3 and 2.1 $/m3,
respectively.
A thermodynamic analysis of several configurations of CSP/
Desalination plants (RO, MED and MED/TVC) has been carried out
by Palenzuela et al. [10]. The electricity generation and water pro-
duction rates of respectively, 50 MWh and 48498m3/day have been
considered for all CSP/desalination configurations. The MED unit
has been considered to be used as the condenser of a Parabolic
Trough Collector (PTC) solar power cycle. The results of that
research have shown that the electricity unit cost of the CSP plant
integrated with MED, RO and MED/TVC are equal to 0.207$/kWh,
0.218$/kWh and 0.237$/kWh, respectively. Also, it has been shown
that RO has the minimum water production cost of 0.644$/m3 as
compare to that of the other plants with the water production cost
of approximately equal to 0.703$/m3. No thermal backup system
has been considered in that work and the calculations has been
made for a sunny day of the year considering 24 h of thermal
storage.
The integration of the hybrid MED/RO and single RO desalina-
tion units with the conventional steam and CSP solar plants have
been investigated by Moser et al. [11]. The water production cost
has been determined under different fuel price scenarios. The water
unit of cost for the MED/RO and single RO plants integrated to the
conventional power plant have been found to be as 0.85 $/m3 and
0.8 $/m3, respectively, for the fuel price scenario of 0.8$/barrel. Also,
it has been shown that the application of the CSP plant as the main
source of MED/RO and single RO plants would result in water
production costs of 1.22 $/m3 and 1.10 $/m3, respectively.
The application of SRC for the water MED and RO desalination
has been investigated by Fichtner and DLR [12] for Mediterranean
Sea, Atlantic Ocean, red sea and Persian Gulf. The MED unit with the
water production capacity of 100000m3/day has been considered
to be used as the condenser of the SRC. The electricity generation of
the SRC has been considered between 100 MWh and 120 MWh and
the total required mirror area and land area for the solar field has
54 I.B. Askari, M. Ameri / Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70
been estimated to be as 1.26 km2 and 4.78 km2, respectively, for a
SRC/MED plant located at the Persian Gulf.
Different configurations of MED systems were considered by
Sharaf et al. [13] in order to produce 100 m3 of fresh water per day.
Two techniques have been investigated in that work. In the first
technique, a heat exchanger has been considered to transfer the
output thermal power of the CSP to the first effect of the MED unit.
Also, the MED unit has been considered to be fed by the steam
extracted from the steam turbine of a Solar Organic Rankine cycle
(SORC) in the second technique. Different configurations of MED
desalination unit (parallel feed, forward feed and backward feed)
have been considered to obtain the water production costs for each
unit. The second technique has been shown to have the higher
water production price as compared to the first technique. The
parallel feed and forward feed MED units have been found to have,
respectively, the minimum and maximum water production costs
among three configurations of the MED unit. It has been shown that
the water production cost of the parallel feed MED unit is 5.47 $/m3
and 5.05 $/m3 for the first and second techniques, respectively. The
higher water production capacity of 5000 m3/day has been also
considered in that research. For the first and second techniques, the
water production cost of parallel feed MED unit has been found to
be as 1.62 $/m3 and 1.87 $/m3, respectively.
The annual performance of MED/TVC desalination plant driven
by a CSP plant has been investigated by Kh. M. Bataineh [14]. A
model has been developed to obtain the specific energy con-
sumption of the plant as well as the water production rate. The CSP
plant has been only used to produce the fresh water and the elec-
tricity generation using the CSP plant has not been considered in
that work. The results of that work have revealed that for water
production rate of 50000m3/day the required aperture area of the
solar field is approximately as 1,080,000 m2 with a thermal storage
capacity of 75 L per each squire meter of the solar field.
A thermo-economic analysis of the joint production of elec-
tricity and water has been carried out by B.O. Delgado et al. [15].
The direct steam generated from the PTC solar field has been
considered to produce the electricity and water production rates of
5 MWh and 1000m3/day, respectively. MED and RO desalination
units have been considered to produce the required electricity
generation rate. The thermal storage system has not been consid-
ered in that research. Also, the calculations have been conducted
for a typical day of the year; 21th June.
In all of the reference articles [1e15], the Parabolic Trough
Collector (PTC) solar field has been used as the thermal source of
the desalination systems. Thermal oils are used as the working fluid
of the conventional PTC solar fields for temperatures above 200
C,
because at these high temperatures the water would produce high
pressures inside the receiver tubes and piping. The high pressures
would require stronger joints and piping, and thus raise the price of
PTC solar field. Therefore, the application of direct steam generated
from the PTC solar field under the high temperature and pressures
(11000 kPa) is still under investigation. However, the fixed receiver
of the LF solar field, which includes the simple piping with no
moving junctions, is suitable to stand the higher steam pressures.
The high-pressure superheated steam (500
Cand above) could be
achieved by using the vacuum absorber tubes [16]. The application
of LF results in significant material reduction compared to other CSP
technologies. LF has low construction cost and rapid assembly and
it benefits very low water use due to innovative automated cleaning
system. Also, LF has very low carbon footprint as compared to the
other solar concentrating technologies. The tight spacing and
ground location of the mirrors and fixed receiver entail the cost
savings and reduced land use of LF solar fields.
It is obvious from the literature that the application of LF solar
field in the dual purpose water desalination and electricity
generation systems has been rarely investigated. Also, most of the
previous research works deal with the application of PTC solar field
for electricity and water generation. The present paper investigated
the application of LF solar field as the thermal source of a Solar
Rankine Cycle (SRC) integrated with a parallel feed MED desalina-
tion unit. A simple optimization method was developed and used in
the hourly simulation, in order to obtain the optimum size of the LF
solar field for two thermal storage capacities of 6 h and 12 h. In
order to overcome the non-availability of solar thermal power, a
Natural Gas Boiler (NGB) was considered. Two LF solar fields of LF1
and LF2 were considered to have a constant mass flow rate for the
Rankine cycle (LF1) while the TES system is charging using the
second solar field and with the variable mass flow rate (LF2).
The application of the MED unit as the condenser of the power
plant would result in decreasing the efficiency of the plant. As a
consequence of this, the electricity generation cost would be
increased. However, the electricity generation losses of the SRC/
MED plant would be different depending on the condenser cooling
temperature of the reference plant without MED (SRC/Ref). For the
conventional power plants located in coastal regions of Iran, the
most common cooling method is to use the seawater to cool down
the power plants by using the once through cooling condensers. In
this case, the power plant condenser temperature is higher than the
case when the power plant is located in the coastal regions with
lower seawater temperatures. Therefore, the described SRC/Ref
power plant does not achieve the same efficiency in every location.
For this reason, the electricity generation losses of the SRC/MED
plant in comparison to the SRC/Ref plant with once through
condensation system are high for the locations with low seawater
temperatures and vice versa.
Persian Gulf seawater temperature is roughly high for most
months of the year and the application of MED unit as the
condenser of the SRC power plants in this region brings the low
electricity generation losses which have a direct effect on the water
production costs.
Due attention to the limitation of the land availability in the
regions such as the study area of the present work, LF with high
land efficiency (packing density), is a promising alternative to
produce water and electricity. The main objectives were to deter-
mine the required LF solar field areas and to obtain the water
production cost, electricity generation and electricity cost of the
SRC/MED plant under different scenarios of the thermal storage
hours and MED unit GORs. Because the fuel price is highly subsi-
dized in Iran, the main thermal energy sources of the desalination
plants are natural gas and the other fossil fuels. Low fuel prices (in
Iran) on one hand and high capital costs of the solar power tech-
nology implies to supply only part of the required thermal power of
the dual purpose water/electricity plants by using the solar thermal
energy. Iran has started to increase electricity and fuel costs from
2012 and this trend is going to be continued until a universal cost of
energy is achieved [17]. Because the high radiation level especially
in south regions of Iran, the solar thermal energy is the best
alternative to be used as thermal source of the conventional MED
desalination units in Iran. The study area of the present study was
Kish Island that is located at south of Iran in the Persian Gulf.
2. MED system
The low temperature MED system considered in the present
study comprises of 14 numbers of evaporation effects, preheaters
and a condenser as shown in Fig. 1. Depend on the flow direction of
evaporating brine and heating steam, the MED systems are cate-
gorized into three configurations of forward feed, parallel feed and
backward feed. In the parallel feed configuration the evaporating
brine and heating steam flows have the same direction. The
 I.B. Askari, M. Ameri / Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70 55

Table 1
Specifications of two commercial MED plants.

Desalination plant PSA Large scale MENA project

[18] PSA [12]

Operating and design conditions MED MED MED

Number of effects n 14 14 14
A effect (m2) 26.3 37,707.38 NA
A preheater (m2) 5 7168.65 NA
A condenser (m2) 18.3 26,093.88 NA
Number of preheaters 13 13 NA
Number of flashing boxes 14 14 11
Fig. 1. Multi Effect Desalination (MED) system-Parallel feed. Top brine temperature T1,
C 70.8 70.8 72.5
Minimum brine temperature Tn,
C 35 35 NA
Temperature drop per effect,
C 2.8 2.8 NA
Feed seawater temperature Tf,
C 35e66 35e66 NA
preheated feed sea water is divided into the set of parallel streams Cooling seawater temperature Tcw,
C 25 25 28
to feed into each evaporation effect. The parallel feed configuration Heating steam flow rate Dm, kg/s 0.082 118.10 96.45
is called the ‘Parallel Cross’ when the remaining brine of each effect System performance
is directed into the next effect as it is shown in Fig. 1. The MED part Distillate production Dt, kg/s 0.80 1157.40 1157.40
Distillate production Dt, m3/day 69.74 100,000 100,000
key parameters are as top brine temperature in the first effect, low
GOR 9.8 9.8 12
temperature of the last effect, the temperature drops between the Specific Heat Consumption (SHC) Q, 66 66 54
effects, the sea water temperature, the sea water flow rate, the kWht/m3
salinity of sea water that is entered into the first effect, the salinity
of the brine water at each effect and the salinity of the brine at the
last effect. A train of flashing boxes, equal to n-1 number is used than that of the MED unit presented in Ref. [12] with a GOR of 12.
sometimes in the MED systems to use the latent heat of the
distillate water that is produced in the evaporator tubes of the
3. Linear Fresnel solar filed
previous effects. In order to enhance the feed water temperature,
the preheaters are assigned to transfer part of the thermal energy of
Fresnel mirror collectors bundle the sunlight onto an absorber
the output vapor of each effect to the feed sea water that is sprayed
pipe via several parallel and level flat mirror facets. For linear col-
into that effect (see Fig. 2).
lectors, the incidence angle between solar rays and the normal
The operational characteristics of the pilot MED (parallel feed)
direction to the collector surface is usually defined. For linear
plant of Plataforma Solar deAlmería (PSA), in the south east of Spain
concentrator, only one coordinate needs to follow the sun with an
were used in the calculations of the present work [18]. As it is
optimized collector adjustment [19]. In the case of linear collectors,
shown in Table 1, the target MED system has 14 effects with heating
the adoption of a single-axis tracking system reduces the usable
steam and feed mass flow rates of 0.082 kg/s and 2.22 kg/s,
Direct Normal Irradiation (DNI). Fresnel solar fields do not need
respectively. The Gain Output Ratio (GOR ¼ DDs ) of the desalination
movable high pressure joints between the absorber tubes, which
plant, which is defined as the ratio of distillate production rate to are a constructive challenge in parabolic trough power plants. This
the motive steam flow rate, is determined as the performance allows lower costs and a less vulnerable heat transfer system. This
parameter of the desalination unit. In order to increase the distillate reflector consists of a large number of long, narrow, flat mirrors
water production rate, the PSA characteristics should be increased strips mounted on tubes which are placed on a flat base frame. It
into specific values. The scale of the described MED system should may be used to produce high temperature (150e520
C) direct
be increased to 1433-fold to have 100000 m3 of distillate water per steam/water. LF has several advantages such as less sensitivity to
day (or 1157.4 kg/s). The specifications of the enlarged MED unit are wind, light weight reflector, more standard components, low land
shown in Table 1 for the water production rate of 100000m3/day. In use, having the gaps to reduce shading/blocking effects, flexible
order to investigate the effect of the MED unit GOR on the water choice of heat transfer fluid. In the LF solar field, collectors and
production costs, another low temperature MED unit, which was absorber tubes can be very long. For example, Novatec Solar's
previously investigated in Ref. [12] (MENA countries project), was Puerto Errado 1 (PE 1) [20] reaches already 806 m. Such long col-
also considered in the present work. As it is tabulated in Table 1, lectors allow the reduction of direction changes of the water/steam
both MED units have an equal number of effects and water pro- flow, which reduces pressure losses in the tubes. It also reduces the
duction rates. The GOR of the PSA MED unit is 9.8 which is lower number of loops and tube connections between them. Therefore, LF

Fig. 2. The location of the study area on the map.

56
can be operated more easily in the Direct Steam Generation (DSG)
mode as compared to PTC. Steam as heat transfer fluid allows
higher temperatures because there is no danger of thermo oil
cracking.
The other properties of Linear Fresnel Reflectors are as: LFs
capture 55e65% of DNI, this concentrators have low performance
on sun rise/set and high at noon and the maximum theoretical
concentration and optical efficiency of LFs is lower than PTCs. In
vacuum cases the field output temperature reaches up to 550
Cat a
pressure of 150 bar and in none vacuum tube collector type the
outlet temperature could be increased up to 310
Cat a pressure of
100 bar [16]. The application of water as the working fluid in the LF
solar field brings several advantages. Water has low cost as
compare to thermo oil which is an expensive component of CSP
plants. Water steam is less corrosive than salt and its freezing
temperature is much lower than the freezing temperature of salt
and even slightly lower than that of thermo oil. Water steam is
more environmentally friendly as compared to the thermo oil so
that leakages in a directly steam generating plant do not imply
major environmental dangers.
4. Solar radiation and temperature distributions of the study
area
Kish Island (26.53
N, 53.96
E) with an area of 90,547 square
kilometers is located only 18 km off the southern coast of the Iran,
in Persian Gulf. This beautiful oval-shaped island is 15 km long and
7 km wide. Kish has a warm and humid climate with an average
temperature of 30
Celsius. The weather is temperate and pleasant
in fall, winter and two months into the spring. The humidity is high
in the majority of the months of the year. The humid season begins
in mid-April and continues for nine months. Kish receives little and
varying rainfall like in other parts of the Persian Gulf. The average
annual rainfall in the island is 170 mm, 82% of which falls in winter,
10% in fall and the rest in spring and summer. Due to its free trade
zone status it is touted as a consumer's paradise, with numerous
malls, shopping centers, tourist attractions, and resort hotels Kish
Island was ranked among the world's 10 most beautiful islands by
The New York Times in 2010, and is the fourth most visited vacation
destination in Southwest Asia after Dubai United Arab Emirates,
and Sharm el-Sheikh. Five years hourly solar radiation data and
ambient dry bulb temperature of the region was collected to be
used in the calculations. Fig. 3 presents the five years hourly
average solar radiation in kWh/m2 for Kish Island. Also, the five
50
45
40
Dry bulb temperature ( C)
o
35
30
25
20
15
10
5 0.1
0 0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000
Hour
Fig. 3. Hourly dry bulb temperature for Kish Island.
I.B. Askari, M. Ameri / Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70
years average ambient dry bulb temperature for the Kish Island is
shown in Fig. 4. The yearly Direct Normal Incidence (DNI) of the
study area is about 2000 MWh/yr.
5. Linear Fresnel optical and thermal performance model
The useful thermal output of the LF solar field is calculated from
the difference of the total absorbed power and the thermal losses:
Q LFR ¼ Q in  Q hlHTF  Q hlpiping (1)
where, Q in is the incident thermal power of a LF and it is deter-
mined by considering the solar field optical and thermal efficiency
models as well as the sun position at the respective hours during
the year. Q hlpiping is the heat losses from the piping system of the LF
solar field. The piping heat losses were considered as 10 W/m2 of
solar aperture area [21]. Q hlHTF , which is the heat losses from the
heat-collection elements located along the focal line of a LF
receiver, is determined based on the following equation that has
been proposed by Natural Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
[22]:
Q hl HTF ¼ A0 þ A1 ðTHTF  Tamb Þ þ A2 :T2HTF þ A3 :T3HTF
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi  
þ A4 :IAMt :IAML :T4HTF þ Vw : A5 þ A6 :ðTHTF  Tamb
(2)
qi is the incidence angle and the above correlation model correlates
the heat loss to the Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF) temperature (A2 and
A3), the heating of the absorber tube above the HTF temperature by
the sun (A4), and the effect of the ambient temperature and wind
speed (A1, A5, and A6). The values of An coefficients were deter-
mined as the results of NREL experimental tests. The NREL test
results for a specific evacuated receiver tube of Schott PTR70 are
shown in Table 2 [22].
The incident thermal power of a LF is calculated using the
following equation:
Q in ¼ hopt :hendloss :Q absorbed (3)
where, Q absorbed is the total incident direct normal solar irradiation
on the aperture area of the LF solar field and it is calculated by using
the total collector aperture area of the solar field, Afield , and the
Direct Normal Incident (DNI) solar radiation as follows:
1.1
1
Hourly solar radiation (kwh/m2)
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000
Hour
Fig. 4. Hourly solar radiation for Kish Island.
 I.B. Askari, M. Ameri / Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70 57

Table 2 varies between 0.43 and 0.63 for cold and warm seasons, respec-
Heat loss correlation coefficients for the 2008 PTR70 [22]. tively, when it is installed in the Kish Island.
Evacuated tube Heat loss coefficient 2008 PTR70 In the present work, a Solar Rakine Cycle (SRC) was investigated
vacuum A0 4.05
in order to determine the amount of annual electricity generation,
A1 0.247 thermal energy requirements, fuel consumptions, solar contribu-
A2 0.00146 tion with and without thermal storage and finally the electricity
A3 5.65E-06 generation and water production costs during the lifetime of the
A4 7.62E-08
SRC/MED system. It is necessary to mention that the LF solar fields
A5 1.7
A6 0.0125 were considered to supply only part of the required thermal energy
of the SRC/MED plant and the other part was considered to be
supplied by NGB thermal source. The specifications and control
strategy of the SRC/MED plant are described in this part of the
Q absorbed ¼ Afield :DNI (4) study. Also, the thermodynamic operational conditions of the
typical SRC/MED and SRC=Ref (Reference SRC plant without water
hopt and hendloss are the optical and “endless” efficiencies, respec- generation) plants are shown in order to illustrate the changes in
tively. The latter is used to evaluate the tail end losses of the linear the mass flow rate and thermal to electricity efficiency of the SRC/
Fresnel concentrator and it is calculated as follows: Ref plant, which are caused by replacing the condenser of the SRC
plant by the MED.
Lf
hendloss ¼ 1  tanqi : (5)
L 5.1. SRC/MED plant specifications

where, qi is the incidence angle on the collector, L is the receiver
length and Lf is the focal distance of primary mirrors from the tube
absorber.
hopt ¼ hopt0 :IAMt :IAML
hopt0 in Eq. (6) is the optical efficiency when the incident angle is
zero. It is also defined as peak optical efficiency and its value is
approximately equal to 0.65 for LF receivers. The transversal and
longitudinal Incidence Angle Modifiers (IAMt and IAML ) are used to
calculate the optical losses that are incurred both with respect to
the transversal plane (perpendicular to the axis of the collector)
and longitudinal plane, respectively. IAM considers the cosine ef-
fect, primary mirrors mutual blocking and shading, secondary
reflector and support shading, optical properties variation, and
intercept factor modification [23]. In the present study, the solar
radiation data, zenith and azimuth angles of Kish Island (26.53
N,
53.96
E) has been considered as a target area in the calculations of
Linear Fresnel solar field. The calculations of the linear Fresnel field
output thermal power were conducted by using the System Advisor
Model (SAM) [24], provided by the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory (NREL). The optical efficiency of the LF solar field
calculated by SAM software is shown in Fig. 5 during the hours of
the year; considering the peak optical efficiency of 0.65. As it is clear
from this figure the maximum daily optical efficiency of the field
Schematics of the recommended SRC/MED desalination plant
with linear Fresnel heat source and Thermal Energy Storage (TES) is
shown in Fig. 6. The SRC plant comprises of two low and high
pressure turbines, two pumps, a Feed Water Heater (FWH), two
(6) Linear Fresnel (LF) solar fields and a condenser that is replaced by a
low temperature MED unit. The SRC operates at the pressure of
11000 kPa and the inlet temperature of 395
C for day moods and
380
C for night moods as shown in Fig. 6. Two LF solar fields were
used in order to simplify the charging and discharging process and
increase the amount of thermal energy that could be stored in the
Thermal Storage System (TES). The solar field of LF1 is considered to
be used as the thermal source of the SRC during the day time and
only for direct support of the SRC/MED plant. The second solar field
of LF2 was applied to produce and store the thermal energy during
day time and use that during the times between sunrise and sunset.
This operation could be useful to keep the mass flow rate of the SRC
at a constant value and to vary the mass flow rate of the second LF2

0.6
Field collector optical efficiency

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000
Hour

Fig. 5. Hourly optical efficiency of the filed during the year. Fig. 6. SRC/MED system with solar thermal source and thermal storage system.
58 I.B. Askari, M. Ameri / Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70
solar field in order to regulate the LF2 solar field output tempera-
ture. Because the operation of MED unit with variable mass flow
rates implies a complex control strategy, the LF1 mass flow rate was
considered as constant in the present work. The constant mass flow
rate of the LF1 plant entails a constant mass flow rate that is
introduced into the first effect of the MED unit. The constant inlet
temperatures of the 395
C (or 380
Cfor night mood) and 70
C
were considered for the SRC/MED plant and MED system, respec-
tively. The calculations of the present paper were conducted by
using a computer program that was developed in MATLAB. The LF1
solar field was allowed to generate the output temperatures of
equal to and less than 395
C and the shortage in the required
thermal energy was considered to be supported by using an
auxiliary Natural Gas Boiler (NGB). Line ‘A’ (Fig. 6) was considered
to be used during the night time when LF1 does not operate and
TES and NGB are used as the thermal source of the system. A
charging-discharging efficiency of 90% was considered in the cal-
culations of the amount of available storable thermal energy. The
MED unit was considered for two different GOR values of 9.8 and 12
in order to determine the effect of GOR on the water production
costs. Fig. 6 shows the SRC/MED plant, which uses a heat exchanger
to increase the thermal energy of the steam that is leaving the low
pressure steam turbine of the SRC/MED plant without increasing in
the steam temperature. This process is applied in order to produce
the dry steam with high thermal energy that is required to be used
as the thermal heat source of the MED unit.
5.2. SRC/MED plant control strategy
Two subprograms were developed in MATLAB to calculate the
percentages of solar share, defocused fraction, NGB share, fuel
consumption, Levelized Cost Of Electricity (LCOE) and Levelized
Cost Of Water (LCOW) of the SRC/MED plant. Subprograms of
number one and two calculate the aforementioned specification of
SRC/MED plant for the solar fields of LF1 and LF2, respectively, as it
is shown in Figures A1 and A2 in the Appendix section. Table 3
shows the assumptions that were considered in the calculations
of the SRC/MED plant. Based on the assumptions of Table 3, the
control strategies of the SRC/MED solar fields are as follows:
As it is clear from Fig. A1, the mass flow rate of LF1 is considered
to be constant. The LF1 is not used to charge the TES and it supplies
only part of the SRC/MED thermal energy during the day time. At
the hours with high solar radiation level when the output thermal
energy of the LF1 exceeds the maximum required value (hout at
T ¼ 395
C and P ¼ 11 bar), part of the LF1 mirrors would be
defocused. During the times when the LF1 output thermal power is
less than the required value, the NGB is used to compensate the
Table 3
The assumptions that were used in the calculations of the SRC/MED plant.
 The MED unit operates at its optimum operational conditions.
 The solar field of LF1 is used to supply part of the required thermal energy of
the SRC/MED plant during the day time.
 The mass flow rate of the LF1 is constant to have a constant mass flow rate in
the MED first effect.
 The output temperature of the LF1 is regulated by defocusing part of the solar
field mirrors.
 The second solar field, LF2, is used to charge the TES system.
 The mass flow rate of LF2 is variable in order to keep its output temperature at
the required charging temperature.
 The output temperature of LF2 is regulated by both defocusing and changing
the HTF mass flow rate.
 The turbines and pumps efficiencies are equal as 90% and 80% respectively.
 The efficiency of the heat exchanger (feeding by low pressure turbine output
steam) is equal to 85%.
 The charging and discharging efficiency of the TES system is equal to 90%.
shortage in the required thermal energy of the SRC/MED plant. The
calculation are continued to obtain the total annual solar share,
NGB share, defocused fraction as well as the LCOE and LCOW of the
plant for each loop number of the LF1 solar field. At a specific
number of loops for the LF1, the SRC/MED plant without thermal
storage has its minimum LCOE. In this case, the major part of the
required thermal energy of the plant is supplied by NGB. At the
second stage, the calculation are made to obtain the total annual
solar share, defocused fraction and NGB share of LF2 based on the
required thermal load of the SRC/MED plant and for different TES
capacities as it is shown in Fig. A2. Because the LF2 is used to charge
the TES, the output thermal power of the LF2 should be equal to the
target output temperature that is required to charge the TES at a
specific temperature. Therefore, during the times with low solar
radiation, the mass flow rate of the LF2 is decreased in order to keep
its output temperature at the target value of 397
C. For the hours
with high level of solar radiation (warm months of the year), part of
the solar field mirrors should be defocused in order to prevent the
overheating. At the final part of the calculations, the output data of
subprograms one and two are input into the main program in order
to determine the total annual solar share, defocused fraction, NGB
share, fuel consumption, LCOE and LCOW of the whole plant (SRC/
MED/LF1þLF2) as it is shown in Fig. 7.
5.3. SRC plant operation conditions with and without MED unit
As it was mentioned formerly in introduction, part of the water
production cost of the SRC/MED unit was calculated based on the
amount of electricity cost that is losses through the replacing of the
condenser of the SRC plant by the MED unit. Table 4 shows the
M.P.
* Input the cost parameters (Table.4)
* Input the following parameters from the
subprograms of Number #1 and #2:
* Number of loop (NL#1)
* SM#1
* S-Sh#1 (%)
* Def#1 (%)
* Number of loops ( NL#2=1 to n)
* SM#2 (for NL#2=1 to n)
* S-Sh#2 (%) (for NL#2=1 to n)
* Def#2 (%) (for NL#2=1 to n)
*Calculate total annual solar share and defocused fraction of
the LF#1+LF#2 for each number of Loop
(EQs. 11 and 12)
*Calculate LCOE and LCOW for each number of Loop
(EQs. 14 to 16)
*Determine the SRC/MED plant with minimum LCOE
Print the following values for the SRC/MED with minimum LCOE:
*Number of loop (NL)
*SM
*S-Sh (%)
*NGB-Sh (%)
*Def (%)
*LCOW
*Total annual Fuel Consumed by NGB
End
Fig. 7. The main computer program flowchart.
 I.B. Askari, M. Ameri / Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70 59

Table 4
SRC/MED and SRC/Ref operational conditions.

SRC/MED SRC/Ref

Mass flow rate (kg/s) GOR ¼ 9.8 192.78 192.78

GOR ¼ 12 157.44 157.44
Electricity production (MW) GOR ¼ 9.8 136.78 162.24
GOR ¼ 12 111.72 132.45
Thermal heat delivered to the MED or GOR ¼ 9.8 287.27 254.46
condenser of the Ref plant (MWht) GOR ¼ 12 234.58 207.820
Thermal heat delivered to the SRC (MWht) GOR ¼ 9.8 438.25 438.25
GOR ¼ 12 357.96 357.96
MED/Condenser temperature (
CÞ e 70 46
Cycle thermal to electricity Efficiency (%) e 31.21 37.03

specifications of SRC plant with and without MED unit integration.

As it can be seen from Table 4, for a specific mass flow rate of the
power cycle, the electricity production of SRC/Ref plant (Reference
SRC plant with condenser and without water production) is
approximately 21.80% higher than the SRC/MED plant electricity Fig. 8. Schematic T-S diagram of the SRC/MED plant (Fig. 6).
production rate; considering the once-through cooling condenser
with seawater cooling temperature of 35
C (Steam leaves the
turbine at 46
C) for the SRC/Ref plant. Application of the MED unit
as the condenser of the SRC requires the operational temperature of
70
C. Therefore, the thermal efficiency of the SRC/MED plant
would be decreased to be nearly equal to 31.21% which is lower
than that of the SRC/Ref with the efficiency of 37%; considering the
once through cooling system with sea water temperature of 35
C.
The water production rate of MED unit was considered to be con-
stant as 100000m3/day in the calculations of the present study.
Table 4 also shows the SRC/MED operational conditions under two
different GOR values. As it is clear from Table 4, the SRC/MED mass
flow rate is determined based on the MED unit GOR. The MED
system with higher GORs needs lower thermal energy to produce a
specific amount of distillate water. Therefore, MED unit with the
GOR value of 12 consumes lower thermal energy to produce fresh
water as compared to the MED unit with the GOR of 9.8. The low
thermal energy needs of the MED units with higher GORs decreases
the required mass flow rate ratios of the heating steam that is
flowing through the MED unit and it consequently decreases the
SRC/MED mass flow rate (Table 4). Fig. 9. Schematic T-S diagram of the SRC/Ref plant.
Figs. 8 and 9 show the schematic T-S diagrams for the SRC/MED
and SRC/Ref plants, respectively. Considering a once through
solar field is more than the MED heating steam mass flow rate.
cooling system for the SRC plant without MED and an average
seawater temperature of 35
C for the Persian Gulf, the output
steam extracted from the low pressure turbine of the SRC would be 6.1. Linear Fresnel field thermal power
equal as 46
C assuming the cooling difference temperature of
11
C. In this case, the efficiency of the SRC/Ref plant is obtained as As it was mentioned formerly, SAM software was used to
equal to 37%, which is higher than the efficiency of SRC/MED plant calculate the optical efficiency and thermal power of the LF solar
(31.21%). As it is clear from Figs. 8 and 9, the amount of heat that is field when its Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF) inlet and outlet tempera-
delivered into the MED unit (Fig. 8) is higher than the amount of tures are 182
C and 395
C (and 380
C for night mood), respec-
heat that is wasted through the condenser of the SRC plant (Fig. 9) tively. It is necessary to mention that SAM software also simulates
at the turbine output steam temperature of 46
C. Only part of the the solar power cycles with the variable HTF mass flow rates during
thermal heat that is used by MED is equal to the amount of thermal a typical year hours. The variable mass flow rates of the solar field
heat that should be wasted through the condenser in the SRC/Ref imply the variable mass flow rates that are introduced into the
plant. The lower electricity generation rate of the SRC/MED plant condenser of the SRC plant. Because the heating mass flow rate of
results in its higher electricity generation costs as compared to the the MED unit was considered to be constant in the present study,
SRC/Ref plant. after the calculation of the LF solar field thermal and optical effi-
ciency by using SAM software, a computer program was developed
6. Technical assessment method in MATLAB to calculate the hourly output temperature of the LF
solar field. The calculations of the present work were made for
The parallel feed MED desalination plant with water production different solar field areas in order to determine the reliability of the
rate of 100000m3/day was considered in the present study. As it is field in supplying part of the SRC/MED required thermal energy
clear from Fig. 6, because part of the mass flow rate of the SRC/MED during a typical year. Each loop of the solar field comprises of 13
would be extracted from the outlet of the high pressure turbine to modules with North-South orientation and total aperture area of
be flowed into the mixing chamber, the mass flow rate of the LF1 6676.8 m2(13  513.6). Fig. 10 shows the thermal power produced
60 I.B. Askari, M. Ameri / Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70

-4 energy:
*10
6
Pt¼8760
t¼1 ðQ LF ðtÞ þ Q TES ðtÞÞ
Ssh ¼ (11)
Field Thermal Power (MWt/m2)

5 8760  Q need

where, Q LF and Q TES are respectively, the thermal energy of the LF1
4
solar field and the amount of thermal energy that is stored in TES of
the LF2. Q need is the hourly required thermal heat of the SRC/MED
3 power plant.
The NGB is used to compensate the shortage in the required
2 thermal energy of the plant during the none-availability of the solar
thermal energy. The following equation was used in the calcula-
tions to determine the amount of thermal heat that should be
1
supplied by NGB during the year hours:
   
0 _ 4  htarget  hout ðtÞ
Q NGB ðtÞ ¼ m hout ðtÞ < htarget (12)
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000
Hour
where, hout ðtÞ is the output thermal energy of the LF1 (or TES heat
Fig. 10. Output power produced by each square meter of the solar field aperture area. exchanger for the night times) and htarget is the specific thermal
energy of the steam at 395
C and 11000 kPa. The hourly defocused
by each square meter of the LF solar field area (MWt/m2) during the fraction refers to the ratio of total yearly defocused solar thermal
year hours for Kish Island. energy to the total annual required thermal energy of the SRC/MED
The output temperature of the solar field would be increased by plant:
increasing the field surface area. The following equation was used
Pt¼8760
to determine the output thermal energy of the field during the t¼1 ðQ DF ðtÞÞ
calculations: DF ¼ ð%Þ (13)
8760  Q need

Q_ LFR where, the hourly defocused thermal energy is calculated using the
hout ¼ þ hin (8)
m_ 4 following equation:
:  
Q_ LFR is the field output thermal power that is calculated using Eq. Q DF ðtÞ ¼ m4  hout ðtÞ  htarget (14)
(1). hin is the solar field input thermal energy which is equal to
776 kJ/kg for the saturated liquid water at 182
C. m_ 4 is the solar Solar Multiple (SM), which is expressed as a multiple of the
field mass flow rate and its value is determine by using the required aperture area required to operate the power cycle at its design
mass flow rate of the MED unit using the following formulation: capacity, was considered in the present study. Solar Multiple (SM) is
defined as follows:
_
_ ¼ MMED
M (9) Solar field Thermal output ðMWtÞ
4
ð1  xÞ SM ¼ hthSROC : (15)
SRC design output power ðMWeÞ
where, M_ MED is the heating steam mass flow rate of the MED unit The LF1 solar field with 13 numbers of modules in each loop was
and "x" is the portion of the solar field mass flow rate that is considered in the present research. Fig. 11 shows the output
extracted from the outlet of the high pressure turbine (Fig. 6).
400
m _ MEDoptimum
_ MED ¼ m (10)
Filed output temperature ( C)

where, m _ MEDoptimum is the optimum value of the required heating

o
mass flow rate in the MED unit. The optimum required mass flow 300
rate is the amount of mass flow rate that is required for MED unit to
operate at its maximum capacity with a specific GOR. In the opti-
mum operation of the MED unit with GOR of 9.8 and heating steam
temperature of 70
C (Table 1), the heating steam with thermal
energy of 2626:2 kJ=kg (lMED ) and mass flow rate of the 118.10 kg/s
200
(10203 m3/day) is transferred into the MED unit in order to produce
1157.40 kg/s (100000 m3/day) of the distillate according to Table 1.
However, in the actual operation of the SRC/MED, the low pressure
turbine output steam latent heat (lc ) has a lower value than the 100
optimum required value of lMED ¼ 2626:2 kJ
kg
. To cope with this
problem and keep the distillate production rate of MED system at a
constant value of 100000m3/day, it is necessary to increase the
thermal energy of the low pressure turbine output steam by using
0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000
the thermal energy of the steam that is extracted from the high
pressure turbine. Hour
Solar share is defined as the portion of the required thermal Fig. 11. Solar field output temperature, m _ ¼ 533200 kg=h, Loop number ¼ 200,
power of the SRC/MED plant that is supplied by the solar thermal GOR ¼ 9.8.Field pressure ¼ 11000 kPa; Tin ¼ 182
C
 I.B. Askari, M. Ameri / Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70
temperature of the solar field for target temperature of 395
C. As it
is shown in Fig. 11, the maximum output temperature of the field is
kept at the constant value of 395
C by using the defocusing of the
solar field mirrors during the hours of the year. It is also clear from
Fig. 11 that for the solar field with 200 numbers of loops, the output
temperature of the solar field would be less than the maximum
target value during the cold seasons.
7. Economic analysis
LCOE and LCOW definitions were used in the economic calcu-
lations of the present study. LCOE and LCOW consist of initial
capital cost, replacing, and operation and maintaining cost of the
system components. The following formulation of LCOE and LCOW
were used in the calculations [25]:
½CCA ðDÞ þ CCA ðIDÞ þ CIns þ CL þ CSP þ Cel LFsolar
LCOE ¼ field
TAEG
½CCA ðDÞBoilerBackup þ Cf  $ 
þ (16)
TAEG kWh
½C ðDÞ þ CCA ðIDÞ þ CIns þ CL þ CSP þ Cel MED
LCOW ¼ CA
TAWP
 
$ different GORs of 9.8 and 12 as mentioned former. At the first part
þ SCWth (17)
m3
where, TAEG and TAWP are the total annual electricity generation
(kWh/yr) and water production (m3/yr), respectively. CCA ðDÞ and
CCA ðIDÞ are the capital annualized direct and indirect costs,
respectively. CIns , CL , CSP , Cf and Cel are the insurance, labor, Spare
parts Replacement, fuel and electricity costs, respectively. The
Specific Cost of Water associated to Thermal energy cost (SCWth ) are
referred to that part of water production cost which is induced into
the plant due to replacing the condenser of the plant by MED unit.
As it was mentioned formerly, the MED unit requires the dry steam
at 70
C. However, for a SRC plant without MED and with an once-
through cooling system, the output steam from the low pressure
turbine is approximately equal to 46
C; assuming the seawater
cooling temperature of 35
C. In the SRC/MED plant, part of the
steam is not used in the steam turbine to produce further electrical
work and it is extracted at 70
C (P ¼ 31.17 kPa) to be flowed through
the MED unit. Therefore, the SRC/MED plant has a lower thermal
efficiency (31.21%) as compared to the plant without the MED unit
with thermal efficiency of 37%. The power plant with steam
extraction at 70
C has higher LCOE than the condensing power
plant (without MED), due to the lower efficiency of the turbine. In
the present work, the following equation was used to calculate
Specific Cost of Thermal energy (SCth ):
P8760  
i¼1 Wnet LCOESRC=MED  LCOESRC=Ref
SCth ¼ P8760 ð$=kWhtÞ
i¼1 Q MED
(18)
where, “SRC=Ref” refers to the SRC plant which has no MED unit, so
that the output steam of the low pressure turbine is introduced into
the condenser of the SRC. QMED is the total annual thermal heat that
is transferred into the MED unit for water production. Considering
the same electricity generation rate of Wnet for the both plants, the
annual loss difference ($/y) is obtained by multiplying the LCOE
difference and the net yearly electricity production of the plant
(Wnet ). The ratio between the total annual loss difference and the
amount of yearly thermal heat consumed by MED system gives the
specific thermal cost that is caused by integration of MED unit into
61
the SRC/Ref plant. In order to determine part of the water pro-
duction cost that is related to the thermal energy cost (SCWth ), the
specific cost of thermal energy, SCth , is multiplied by Specific Heat
Consumption (SHC, kWh/m3) of MED unit as follows:
SCWth ¼ SCth  SHCMED ð$=m3Þ (19)
The SHCMED of the MED is varied based on the GOR as it is
shown in Table 1.
The annualized capital costs were calculated using the Capital
Recovery Factor (CRF) during the life time of the project:
CCA ¼ C  CRFði; NÞ (20)
where, C is the capital costs, N is the total life time of the project
which was considered as 25 years in the present study. The value of
interest rate of 0 i0 was considered as 6% in the economic analysis.
CRF is calculated using the following formulation:
i:ð1 þ iÞN
CRFði; NÞ ¼ (21)
ð1 þ iÞN  1
The SRC/MED plant was techno-economically investigated in
order to determine the total electricity and water production costs.
The electricity generation of the system was calculated for two
of the calculations, the LCOE was determined and the results were
used in the calculations of the LCOW parameter. The capital and
operational & maintenance costs of the MED desalination unit and
also the investment costs of a LF solar field (with a power block) are
shown in Table 5. The capital costs of the MED and solar field are
classified as Direct Costs (DC) and Indirect Cots(IC). The operation
and maintenance costs of the desalination units were determined
as the percentages of their direct costs and also based on their
electrical and thermal energy costs.
8. Results and discussions
The SRC/MED with different thermal storage capacities were
investigated in order to determine the optimum solar field aperture
area (number of loops) generating the solar thermal energy with a
minimum electricity generation cost. In this part of the study, the
solar share, SM, the amount of defocused thermal energy, LCOE and
LCOW of the SRC/MED plant were determined for the solar field
with different numbers of loops. A simple optimization approach
was proposed and used to determine the optimum configuration of
the plant with minimum electricity and water generation costs. The
electricity generation cost of the SRC plant was also calculated for
the plant without MED and comprises of a once-through cooling
system. The difference between the electricity cost of SRC/MED and
SRC/Ref plants was used to calculate part of the water production
costs of the RC/MED plant.
8.1. SRC/MED plant without thermal storage
The effect of increasing of the solar field aperture area on the
percentage of the solar share and LCOE of the plant was determined
for the SRC/MED without TES as it is shown in Figs. 12 and 13 for
two GORs of 9.8 and 12, respectively. As it can be seen from Fig. 12,
the solar share would be increased by increasing the solar field
number of loops. For both GOR scenarios, the low number of loops
with low solar share entails the high LCOEs. However, increasing of
the loop numbers increases the solar share and consequently the
LCOE of the system would be decreased to a minimum value for a
specific number of loops. The increasing of the loop numbers more
62 I.B. Askari, M. Ameri / Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70

Table 5
Different cost parameters of the Linear Fresnel solar field, MED desalination unit
Solar Multiple (SM)
[12,24,25]. 0.38 0.77 1.16 1.55 1.93 2.32 2.71 3.10 3.49
0.42 35
MED (100000 m3/day)
Solar share
Direct Costs (DC) 0.39 LCOE
30
Main investment ($/m3/day) 1800
Post-treatment plant ($/m3) 120 0.36
Open sea water intakes ($/m3) 313 25
Drinking water storage and pumping ($/m3) 100 0.33

solar share (%)

LCOE ($/kWh)
Water Storage Tank ($/m3/h) 100
Indirect Costs(IC) 0.3 20
Freight & insurance rate during 5.00% DC
construction
0.27 15
Owner's cost rate 10.00% of direct material and labor
cost
Contingency rate 10.00% of DC
0.24
10
Construction overhead (interest during 12.24% of DC
construction) 0.21
Operation Costs (OC) 5
Electricity costs ($/m3) Based on LCOE (Assuming: 0.18
1.55 kWh/m3)
Spare parts Replacement 1.5% of total DC 0.15 0
Chemical cost of product water ($/m3) 0.025 40 80 120 160 200 240 280 320 360 400
insurance 5.00% of total DC Number of Loops
Natural Gas auxiliary boiler costs ($/m3) 0.02
Labor cost of product water ($/m3) 0.025 _ ¼ 157:44 kg=s , Electricity
Fig. 13. GOR ¼ 12, without thermal storage m
Linear Fresnel Solar Field &Power Block production ¼ 111.72 MW.

Direct Costs (DC)

Site improvement ($/m2) 20
Solar filed ($/m2) 180 exceeds the maximum target temperature. Therefore, part of the
HTF system ($/m2) 35 mirrors would be defocused in order to prevent the overheating
Electricity costs ($/kWh) 0.21 and therefore, part of the solar thermal energy is wasted. The
Thermal Storage System ($/kWht) 70 higher defocused fractions results in higher LCOEs for the SRC/MED
Contingency rate 10.00% total DC
Power Block (PB) ($/kWh) 940
plant.
Indirect Costs (ID) It is clear from Figs. 12 and 13 that the minimum LCOE with
Design and Construction 15% of total DC GORs of 9.8 and 12 is obtain at a solar multiple of approximately
Land cost ($/m2) 10 equal to 1.26. It is also clear from Figs. 12 and 13 that for higher
insurance 1% of total DC
GORs, because the MED unit requires a low heating steam mass
flow rate, the solar field mass flow rate is also decreased based on
Eq. (9). Therefore, the minimum LCOE of the plant with GOR of 12 is
Solar Multiple (SM) obtained for the solar field with a lower number of loops (130) as
0.31 0.63 0.94 1.26 1.58 1.89 2.21 2.52 2.84 compared to the plant with GOR of 9.8 that requires at least 160
0.42 35 numbers of loops to have its minimum LCOE. It could be concluded
Solar share that the increasing of MED unit GOR from 9.8 to 12 would decrease
0.39 LCOE
30 the solar filed number of loops by about 24%. It is also interesting to
0.36 mention that under two GOR scenarios, the system with minimum
25 LCOE has the solar share of 20%.
0.33 The fractions of total required thermal energy that is produced
solar share (%)
LCOE ($/kWh)

by solar field but wasted through defocusing and charging-

0.3 20 discharging operations are shown in Fig. 14 for SRC/MED plant
without TES and two different GORs. As it is clear from Fig. 14, for
0.27 15 SRC/MED plant with MED GOR of 9.8 and 12, the defocused thermal
losses are started at loop numbers of 160 and 120, respectively. The
0.24
10 further increase in the solar field loop numbers implies to defocus
0.21 further part of the mirrors during some hours of year and this
consequently results in wasting the higher amount of solar thermal
5
0.18 energy and increasing the LCOE of plant as it is shown in Figs. 12
and 13. In the other word, increasing of solar field aperture area
0.15 0 for more than a specific value would only result in increasing the
40 80 120 160 200 240 280 320 360 400
amount of wasted solar thermal energy and it has no considerable
Number of Loops effect on the percentage of the solar share. Therefore, the slope of
_ ¼ 192:78 kg=s , Electricity
Fig. 12. GOR ¼ 9.8, without thermal storage, m
solar share lines in Figs. 12 and 13 would be gradually decreased at
production ¼ 136.76 MW. solar field loop numbers of 160 and 120 for GORs of 9.8 and 12,
respectively.

than a specific number have no considerable effect on the solar 8.2. SRC/MED system with thermal storage
share and this only increases the LCOE of the system. For higher
number of loops, the output thermal power of the solar field The application of TES system was investigated to determine the
 I.B. Askari, M. Ameri / Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70 63

30 same net electricity generation rate was considered for both SRC/
GOR=12 MED and SRC/Ref plants. Based on Fig. 15, the LCOE of the SRC/MED
GOR=9.8 plant is approximately 15.5% higher than that of the SRC/Ref plant
25 assuming cooling condenser temperature of 46
C for the SRC/Ref
plant. As mentioned former, in the case of SRC/MED part of the
Defocused fraction (%)

steam is not used in the turbine to produce further electricity and it

20
15
10
5
0
40 80 120 160 200 240 280 320 360 400
Number of Loops
Fig. 14. Total annual defocused fraction for the SRC/MED plants with different GORs
and without thermal storage.
effect of thermal storage on the percentage of solar share in thermal
energy generation. The configurations with minimum LCOE, which
were determined from the former section, were used in the cal-
culations of the present part of study. For instance, 160 numbers of
loops was considered for LF1 solar field in SRC/MED plant with GOR
of 9.8. Then, the calculations were continued to find the LF2 solar
field optimum numbers of loops for two TES capacities of 6 and
12 h.
8.2.1. SRC/MED and SRC/Ref LCOEs
At first, the LCOE of both SRC/MED and SRC/Ref plants were
determined and then the results were used to calculate LCOW of
the SRC/MED plant. The variations in LCOE of the SRC/MED and
SRC/Ref (without MED) plants versus the solar field numbers of
loops for TES capacity of 6 h and GOR of 12, is shown in Fig. 15. A
is extracted at temperature of 70
C. The loss in the electricity
generation of the SRC/MED plant, which is caused by the integra-
tion of MED unit into the plant, results in higher LCOE of the SRC/
MED as compared to the SRC/Ref plant. As it is shown in Fig. 15, the
reference SRC plant with higher efficiency of (37%) requires lower
solar field number of loops as compared to SRC/MED plant with the
efficiency of 31.21%. The minimum LCOE of both plants are obtained
for a same solar share and SM values of 34% and 2.3, respectively.
The similar results were obtained for the plants with 12 h of ther-
mal storage and the LCOE of the SRC/MED was found to be
approximately 15.5% higher than that of the SRC/Ref plant. The
difference between the LCOE of SRC/MED and SRC/Ref plants was
calculated for each thermal storage capacity and GOR value to
determine the thermal energy cost of the MED unit (Eq. (18)).
8.2.2. SRC/MED LCOE and LCOW
The LCOE and LCOW of the SRC/MED plant versus the solar field
numbers of loops, for TES capacity of 6 h and two GORs of 9.8 and
12, are shown in Figs. 16 and 17, respectively. As it is clear from
Fig. 16, the minimum LCOE is obtained for the solar field with
approximately 290 numbers of loops (SM ¼ 2.3) and 34.05%
contribution of the solar field in thermal energy generation (solar
share). Fig. 17 shows that the SRC/MED plant with GOR of 12 has a
minimum LCOE when the solar field number of loops is approxi-
mately equal to 240 (SM ¼ 2.32) and with the solar share of 34.33%.
A comparison between Figs. 16 and 17 shows that for the TES ca-
pacity of 6 h, the minimum electricity cost are obtained at same
solar multiple and solar share (Fig. 16) for both GOR values. How-
ever, the solar field loop numbers for the configuration with GOR of
9.8 is higher than that for the configuration with GOR of 12. The low
GORs imply the high mass flow rates for the MED unit, and
consequently the high mass flow rates for SRC/MED plant. Solar
field with high mass flow rate requires more number of loops to
obtain the output target temperature of 395
C as compared to the
case with low mass flow rate.

0.24
LCOESRC/MED Solar Multiple
0.23 o
LCOESRC/Ref (TC=46 C) 1.58 1.74 1.90 2.06 2.31 2.53 2.70 2.85 3.00
0.25 2.1
SM=2.32

0.22
LCOE
0.24
SM=2.31

LCOW
0.21
LCOE ($/kWh)

0.23
2.05
0.2 0.22
LCOE ($/kWh)

LCOW ($/m3)
34.05 %

0.19 0.21
26.56%
34.12%

2
28.82%

38.13%

0.18 0.2
37.59%
31.08%

36.89%
35.98%
34.05%
34.78%

0.17 0.19
solar share 1.95
0.18
0.16
0.17
0.15
200 220 240 260 280 300 320 340 360 380 400
0.16 1.9
Number of Loops 200 220 240 260 280 300 320 340 360 380 400
Number of Loops
Fig. 15. SRC/MED and SRC/Ref plants with 6 h of thermal storage, GOR ¼ 9.8, Electricity
production ¼ 136.78 MW. Fig. 16. 6 h of thermal storage, GOR ¼ 9.8, Electricity production ¼ 136.78 MW.
64 I.B. Askari, M. Ameri / Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70

Solar Multiple 12 12
1.55 1.74 1.93 2.13 2.32 2.52 2.71 2.89 3.10 Charging-Discharging Heat losses
0.25 2.1 Defocused fraction

Fraction of TES heat losses (%)

LCOE 10 10
0.24

Defocused fraction (%)

LCOW

0.23 8 8
26.61%

2.05

38.32%
solar share
29.38%

0.22

37.74%
LCOE ($/kWh)

LCOW ($/m3)
36.94%
6 6
32.14%

34.33%

35.86%
0.21
2
0.2 4 4

0.19
1.95 2 2
0.18

0.17 0 0
160 180 200 220 240 260 280 300 320 340
0.16 1.9 Number of Loops
160 180 200 220 240 260 280 300 320 340
Number of Loops Fig. 19. Defocused fraction and fraction of TES heat losses for SRC/MED with 6 h of
thermal storage, GOR ¼ 12.
Fig. 17. 6 h of thermal storage, GOR ¼ 12, Electricity production ¼ 111.72 MW.

As it is clear from Figs. 16 and 17, the LCOW of the plant with
GOR of 12 (1.91$/m3) is nearly 5.5% lower than that with GOR of 9.8
(2.01$/m3). The Specific Heat Consumption (SHC) of MED unit with
GOR of 9.8 is nearly 22.22% higher than that of with GOR of 12 based
on MED specifications that can be seen in Table 1. Therefore, SRC/
MED plant with GOR of 9.8 consumes higher thermal heat as
compared to the other plant with GOR of 12. Because LCOE of SRC/
MED plant is same for both GORs (Figs. 16 and 17), the same Specific
Cost of Thermal energy (SCth ) is obtained for the SRC/MED plant
with different GORs according to Eq. (18). However, because the
higher specific thermal energy consumption of MED unit with GOR
of 9.8, the LCOW of SRC/MED plant with GOR of 9.8 is higher than
that with GOR of 12 based on equations (17) and (19).
For 6 h of thermal storage, the percentage of heat losses that
occurred through the “defocusing” and TES “charging-discharging”
operations are shown in Figs. 18 and 19 for the SRC/MED with GOR
of 9.8 and 12, respectively. For each thermal loss (defocussing or
charging-discharging), the loss fractions were calculated by
12
Charging-Discharging Heat losses
Defocused fraction
dividing the amount of total annual loss value by the SRC/MED total
annual required thermal heat. For both SRC/MED plants, the defo-
cused fraction is increased by increasing the number of loops for
more than a specific value. The optimum number of loops should be
obtained based on the required thermal energy of SRC/MED and
also based on the TES system capacity. For more than a specific
number of loops, the produced solar thermal energy exceeds the
required thermal need and also it cannot be stored in the TES
because the capacity of TES is not suitable for charging the higher
amount of thermal energy. Therefore, the further increase in solar
filed number of loops results in wasting the solar thermal energy
and therefore increasing the LCOE of the plant. In the other word,
the inappropriate increasing in the solar field number of loops has
no considerable effect in the solar share and this only increases the
capital costs of the plant. It is also clear from Fig. 17 that the
increasing of the optimum number of loops from 240 to 260
numbers, which means 0.13 km2 increases in the LF aperture area,
would result in only 4.3% increase in the solar share. The same
result would be obtained from Fig. 16. For SRC/MED plant with GOR
of 9.8 and 12, the number of loops for which the defocusing of solar
field mirrors should be increased to prevent the overheating are
12
290 and 240 numbers, respectively. Also, for both GORs, the fraction
of charging-discharging heat losses is increased by increasing the
Fraction of TES heat losses (%)

10 10 number of loops; however, the TES capacity is low to store the solar
thermal energy for further increase in the number of loops for more
Defocused fraction (%)

than a specific number. Therefore, the charging-discharging heat

8 8
6 6
4 4
2 2
0 0
200 220 240 260 280 300 320 340 360 380 400
Number of Loops
Fig. 18. Defocused fraction and fraction of TES heat losses for SRC/MED with 6 h of
thermal storage, GOR ¼ 9.8.
losses has no considerable increase for the loop numbers of more
than 290 (Fig. 19) and 240 (Fig. 19), and the major heat losses are
occurred though the defocusing operation. As seen in Figs. 18 and
19, for the loop numbers with minimum LCOEs, the defocused
fraction of both plants are approximately equal to 0.93%. Figs. 18
and 19 also show that in order to have an optimum solar field
size, a short part of solar thermal energy should be defocused and
this portion of solar thermal loss is inevitable. Also, 1.62% thermal
energy lost would be occurred through the TES charging and dis-
charging process for the plants with 6 h of thermal storage.
For 12 h of thermal storage, the effect of increasing of the solar
field loop numbers on LCOE and LCOW of SRC/MED plant for two
different GORs of 9.8 and 12 are shown in Figs. 20 and 21, respec-
tively. As it is clear from these figures, the minimum LCOE is ob-
tained at solar multiple of approximately equal to 3.48 and solar
share of approximately 49.8% for both GORs. However, for SRC/MED
 I.B. Askari, M. Ameri / Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70 65

Solar Multiple (SM) For 12 h of thermal storage, the defocusing and charging-
2.85 3.00 3.16 3.32 3.48 3.64 3.80 3.96 4.11
discharging heat losses are shown in Figs. 22 and 23 for the SRC/
0.23 2.24 MED with GORs of 9.8 and 12, respectively. According to Figs. 20
LCOE and 21, the minimum LCOE of SRC/MED plant with 12 h of TES
LCOW and GORs of 9.8 and 12 are obtained for the loop numbers of 440
0.225
2.22 and 360, respectively; which are corresponding to the defocused
fraction of 2.15% based on Figs. 22 and 23. The increasing of the TES
0.22 capacity from 6 h to 12 h results in higher amount of thermal en-
LCOE ($/kWh)

LCOW ($/m3 )
2.2 ergy that is wasted through the TES charging-discharging operation
as compared to the plant with 6 h of thermal storage (Figs. 18 and
0.215 19). As it is shown in Figs. 22 and 23, the fraction of TES heat losses

54.01%
46.56%

change from 2.40% to 4% by increasing the number of loops from

53.16%
2.18
52.19%
48.31%

the 290 (or from 240 for GOR of 12) to 440 (or to 360 for GOR of 12).
51.07%
49.07%
49.79%

0.21
44.58%

The results reveal that the SRC/MED plant with 12 h of thermal

storage has the minimum LCOE for defocusing and charging-
2.16
0.205 solar share discharging heat losses of 2.15% and 3.34%, respectively.
The LCOW of SRC/MED plant is highly depended on Specific Cost
of Water related to Thermal heat cost (SCWth ) (Eq. (19)). Fig. 24
0.2 2.14
360 380 400 420 440 460 480 500 520 540 shows the portions of SCWth , electricity cost (LCOE) and MED
Number of Loops
Fig. 20. 12 h of thermal storage, GOR ¼ 9.8, Electricity production ¼ 136.78 MW. 12 12
Charging-Discharging Heat losses
Defocused fraction

Fraction of TES heat losses (%)

10 10
Solar Multiple (SM) Defocused fraction (%)
2.71 2.90 3.10 3.29 3.49 3.68 3.87 4.07
0.23 2.1
8 8
LCOE
LCOW
0.225
2.08 6 6
41.84%

solar share
0.22
43.21%
LCOE ($/kWh)

LCOW ($/m3)

4 4
2.06

0.215
45.78%

53.72%

2 2
52.64%

2.04
47.99%
48.93%

51.34%
49.81%

0.21
0 0
360 380 400 420 440 460 480 500 520 540
2.02
0.205 Number of Loops
Fig. 22. Defocused fraction and fraction of TES heat losses for SRC/MED with 12 h of
0.2 2 thermal storage, GOR ¼ 9.8.
280 300 320 340 360 380 400 420 440
Number of Loops
12 12
Fig. 21. 12 h of thermal storage, GOR ¼ 12, Electricity production ¼ 111.72 MW. Charging-Discharging Heat losses
Defocused fraction
Fraction of TES heat losses (%)
10 10
Defocused fraction (%)

with GOR of 12, the required solar field loop numbers is about 22%
less than that with GOR of 9.8. It is also clear from Figs. 20 and 21
8 8
that the same value of minimum LCOE would be obtained for
both GORs; however the LCOW of the system with GOR of 12 is
nearly 9.3% lower than the minimum LCOW obtained for the system 6 6
with GOR of 9.8. As it was mentioned formerly in the explanations
of Figs. 16 and 17, the higher thermal energy needs of MED unit
with GOR of 9.8, result in higher LCOW of SRC/MED plant as 4 4
compared to that with GOR of 12. The results also show that the
increasing of thermal storage capacity from 6 h to 12 h increases the 2 2
solar share and LCOE of both plants by about 45% and 5%, respec-
tively. By increasing the TES capacity from 6 h to 12 h, the LCOW of
SRC plant with GORs of 12 and 9.8 would be increased by about 0 0
280 300 320 340 360 380 400 420 440
5.38% and 8.5%, respectively. It is also clear from Fig. 21 that by
increasing the solar field loop numbers from 340 to 360 numbers Number of Loops
(5.8% increase), the solar share of the plant would be increased by
Fig. 23. Defocused fraction and fraction of TES heat losses for SRC/MED with 12 h of
about 3.8%; which results in a low decrease in the LCOE of the plant. thermal storage, GOR ¼ 12.
66 I.B. Askari, M. Ameri / Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70

changing in the condenser cooling temperature of the SRC/Ref

Fig. 24. The portion of different costs to total LCOW of the plant.
capital and Operation & Maintenance costs to total LCOW of the
plant for GORs of 9.8 and 12. As it is seen from Fig. 24, the electricity
cost represents the minimum proportion of LCOW among three
cost parameters. Assuming the MED electricity consumption of
1.55 kWh/m3, the electricity cost constitutes approximately 15.60%
of the LCOW of the plant. Based on Fig. 24, for SRC/MED plants with
GORs of 12 and 9.8, respectively, 35% and 41% of the total LCOW is
related to the SCWth for 6 h of thermal storage. In the other word,
22.44% decrease in the GOR of the MED unit results in 14.28% in-
crease in the portion of SCWth to total LCOW of the plant. The
increasing of TES capacity and solar field number of loops results in
increasing the thermal energy costs. As it can be seen from Fig. 24,
the increasing of thermal storage capacity from 6 h to 12 h increases
the portion of SCWth from 35% to 40%e41.5% and 45.0% for the SRC/
MED plant with GORs of 12 and 9.8, respectively.
It is necessary to mention that in the calculation of thermal
energy costs, the LCOE of the SRC/Ref cycle (without MED) was used
based on Eq. (18). And, the LCOE of the reference cycle is depended
on the cycle efficiency and the cooling temperature of the
condenser. So that, the lower cooling temperatures results in higher
efficiency and consequently lower LCOE of the reference cycle.
Therefore, the portion of SCWth to the LCOW would be changed by
plant. For the seawater temperatures of lower than 35
C, the LCOW
of the plant would be increased because the higher LCOE difference
between the SRC/Ref and SRC/MED plants when once-through
cooling method is used for the SRC/ref plant. For instance, for the
condenser temperature of 36
C (Seawater temperature of 25
CÞ ,
the LCOE of SRC/Ref plant with electricity generation rate of
111.72 MW and 6 h of thermal storage is obtained as 0.1677$/kWh,
which is lower than its LCOE corresponding to condenser temper-
ature of 46
C (0.1704$/kWh) as it can be seen from Fig. 15. In this
case, the water production cost of the SRC/MED plant is obtained as
1.98$/m3, which is approximately 3.66% higher than its LCOW that
is obtained in the case with condenser temperature of 46
C for the
SRC/Ref plant.
Table 6 shows the LCOE, LCOW and the other technical charac-
teristics of the SRC/MED plant for two thermal storage hours and
two different GORs of the MED unit. As it can be seen from Table 6,
for the both GORs, the percentage decrease in the amount of annual
fuel consumption is approximately equal to 53% and 98% with 6 h
and 12 h of thermal storage, respectively. For both GORs, approxi-
mately 20.70% of total required thermal energy of the SRC/MED
would be supplied by solar energy for the plant without TES system
(LF1). Also, it is evidence from Table 6 that, the electricity genera-
tion rate of the plant with the MED unit GOR of 9.8 is approximately
22% higher than that with GOR of 12. The higher mass flow rate and
more number of loops that is required for the SRC/MED plant with
the lower GOR of 9.8 would result in a higher electricity generation
rate. For both GORs, the LCOW of the plant excluding the thermal
energy costs of the water production is equal to 1.25 $/m3 and 1.27
$/m3 for 6 h and 12 h of thermal storage, respectively. The reason is
that for both GORs the water production rate of 100000m3/day was
considered in the calculations. Therefore, the electricity cost, MED
capital, operation and maintenance costs of the plant with the same
water production capacity are equal for both GORs. However, when
the thermal energy cost (which it is depended on electricity cost
losses) is considered in the calculations, the LCOW of the plant with
GOR of 9.8 is obtained to be approximately 5.35% and 8.5% higher
than that of the plant with GOR of 12.
8.3. Sensitivity analysis
Because the electricity and water unit of costs would be varied

Table 6
SRC/MED system with minimum LCOE, under two different MED unit GORs.

GOR 9.8 12

Thermal storage hours 6 12 6 12

Thermal storage capacity (MWt) 2485 4970 2029 4058
Thermal need (kJ/kg) 2284 2284 2284 2284
Number of loops 290 440 240 360
Solar Multiple (SM) 2.31 3.48 2.31 3.48
Solar field area(km2) 1.93 2.93 1.60 2.40
Solar thermal storage share (%) 13.57 29.05 13.37 29.29
Direct solar thermal share (%) 20.76 20.76 20.68 20.68
Total Solar share (%) 34.33 49.81 34.05 49.97
NGB share (%) 65.67 50.19 65.95 50.03
Fuel consumption (Mio. m3/year) 195.77 149.62 196.60 149.68
SRC mass flow rate (kg/s) 192.78 192.78 157.44 157.44
Gross electricity (MWh) 136.78 136.78 111.72 111.72
Net electricity (MWh) 115.35 115.35 92.85 92.85
Specific Heat Consumption for Des. (kWht/m3) 66 66 54 54
MED total DC and ID costs (Mio. $) 296.8 296.8 296.8 296.8
MED specific costs($/m3/day) 2968.8 2968.8 2968.8 2968.8
Total solar field &PB costs (Mio. $) 987.71 1527.3 813.11 1248.7
LCOE($/kWh) 0.1955 0.2054 0.1961 0.2061
LCOW excluding water thermal heat costs ($/m3) 1.25 1.27 1.25 1.27
LCOW including water thermal heat costs ($/m3) 2.01 2.18 1.91 2.01
 I.B. Askari, M. Ameri / Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70 67

Table 7
The multiple values used in sensitivity analysis for increasing and decreasing of the solar field, land, fuel and electricity unit costs.

Solar field Land Fuel Thermal storage

Cost Value relative to the cost Cost Value relative to the cost Cost Value relative to the cost Cost Value relative to the cost
($/m2) assumption in Table 5 ($/m2) assumption in Table 5 ($/m3) assumptions in Table 5 ($/kWht) assumption in Table 5

240 1.33 50 5 0.30 15 110 1.57

220 1.22 40 4 0.20 10 100 1.42
200 1.11 30 3 0.15 7.5 90 1.28
180 1.00 20 2 0.10 5 80 1.14
160 0.88 10 1 0.05 2.5 70 1
140 0.77 5 0.5 0.03 1.5 60 0.85
e e e e 0.02 1 50 0.71

by changing the capital costs of the solar field, land area, thermal 2
storage system and fuel costs, a sensitivity analysis was made to LF field cost
consider the effect of each cost parameters on the LCOE and LCOW TES cost
of the plant. It is necessary to mention that in the sensitivity 1.98 Fuel cost
analysis of each cost parameter, the other cost parameters were Land cost
considered to be constant. Table 7 shows the multiple values that 1.96
were used to change different cost parameters that are included in

LCOW ($/m )
3
the economic analysis. The sensitivity analysis was made on the
LCOW and LCOE of the plant with the minimum LCOE (Table 6), 240 1.94
numbers of loops, 6 h of thermal storage and GOR of 12.
Fig. 25 shows the sensitivity of the LCOW to each cost param- 1.92
eters for the plant with GOR of 12, 6 h of thermal storage and the
minimum LCOE using the results obtained from Table 6. As it is LCOW Min=1.91$/m3
clear from Fig. 25, the LCOW of plant is most sensitive to the solar 1.9
field cost. The TES system, fuel and land costs are respectively, the
second ranked and third ranked effective parameters that affect the 1.88
LCOW of the plant. Generally, the higher number of loops results in
higher TES capacity and larger required land area. As it is shown in
Fig. 25, the decreasing of solar field cost to 140$/m2, which is 77% of 1.86
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
its first cost assumption, results in decreasing the LCOW of the plant
to 1.88$/m3. Value relative to the initial cost assumptions
For the plant with minimum LCOE, GOR of 12 and 6 h of thermal
Fig. 25. Sensitivity analysis on the LCOW of the plant with 6 h of storage, GOR ¼ 12,
storage (Table 6), the sensitivity of the LCOE to the cost parameters Electricity production ¼ 111.71 MW.
of the plant is shown in Fig. 26. A comparison between two figures
of 25 (LCOW) and 26(LCOE) shows that the slop of the lines of solar
field, TES and land costs in the LCOW spider graph (Fig. 26) are 0.25
approximately 1.55 fold of the slope of lines for the mentioned costs LF field cost
parameters in the LCOE spider graph of Fig. 26. Because the lower 0.24 TES cost
amount of total annual water production (36,500,000 m3/yr) as Fuel cost
compare to the high annual electricity generation of Land cost
0.23
978,754,800 kW h/yr, the sensitivity of the LCOW to the solar field,
TES and land cost parameters is more than the sensitivity of the
LCOE ($/kWh)

LCOE to these cost parameters. 0.22

0.21

0.2

9. Effect of plant scale on LCOE and LCOW 0.19 LCOE Min=0.1961$/kWh

In this part of the study, the effect of SRC/MED scale on the 0.18
electricity generation and water production costs was investigated.
The electricity and water production rates were increased to two
0.17
fold and the calculations were conducted to obtain the LCOE and 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
LCOW of the SRC/MED plant with GOR of 12. For the plant with
Value relative to the initial cost assumptions
larger scale, the capital costs of solar field, TES and MED associated
to the plant delivering a two times capacity were estimated Fig. 26. Sensitivity analysis on the LCOE of the plant with 6 h of storage, GOR ¼ 12,
through the power law rule as follows [26]: Electricity production ¼ 111.71 MW.
68 I.B. Askari, M. Ameri / Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70
Table 8
The economic results of the SRC/MED plant with large capacity.
TES capacity 6h
Number of loops 480
Gross electricity (MWh) 223.44
Net electricity (MWh) 185.5
Water production rate (m3/day) 200000
LCOE($/kWh) 0.1674
LCOW including water thermal heat costs ($/m3) 1.50
 n
Capital costL scale CapacityL scale
¼ (23)
Capital costS scale CapacityS scale
where, exponent “n” is equal to 0.83 and 0.65 for MED and solar
field (and TES), respectively. Table 8 reports results obtained for
economic evaluation of the SRC/MED plant with the larger capacity.
As it can be seen from Table 8, the increasing of the plant scale to
two times would result in decreasing its LCOE and LCOW. For 6 h of
thermal storage and the electricity generation rate of 223.44 MWh,
the LCOE is obtained as 0.1674$/kWh which is 17.14% lower than the
LCOE of the plant with the electricity generation rate of
111.72 MWh. A similar result is obtained for the plant with 12 h of
thermal storage and the LCOE of the large scale plant is obtained as
0.1758$/kWh which is approximately 17.17% lower than that of the
small scale plant with electricity generation rate of 111.72 MWh
(0.2061$/kWh, Table 6). the LCOW of the SRC/MED plant with large
capacity (200000m3/day) was also determined to be 27.33% lower
than the plant with the water production capacity of 100000m3/
day as it can be seen from Table 8.
10. Conclusion
In the present paper, a Solar Rankine Cycle (SRC) with the hybrid
thermal source of Linear Fresnel Solar/Natural Gas (LF/NG) was
considered to generate the electricity and distillate water. The
mentioned system comprises of two LF solar fields; one of which
was considered to charge the thermal storage system, and the other
solar field was used to support part of the required thermal energy
of the SRC/MED using its direct steam during the day times. Two
typical MED systems with 14 effects and a daily water production
rate of 100000m3/day were considered to be used as the condenser
of the described cycle. The described MED units were considered to
have two different Gain Output Ratios (GORs) of 9.8 and 12 in order
to investigate the effect of GOR on the water production cost of the
described system. Two different storage capacities of 6 and 12 h
were considered in the present work. The described plant was
considered to be utilized in the south coastal region of Iran; where
the most conventional power plants use the once though cooling
method as the condenser of the power cycle. In order to determine
the amount of increase in the electricity generation cost, which is
caused by integration the MED unit into the SRC plant, a compar-
ison was made between the proposed SRC/MED plant and a typical
SRC plant having a once-through cooling condenser with the sea
water cooling temperature of 35
C.The following conclusions were
drawn from this study:
 In order to have the dry steam at 70
C,
which is required for the
MED unit to operate at its optimum operational conditions, the
amount of thermal energy that is delivered to the MED unit
should be high as compared to the SRC plant with condenser
temperature of 35
C (and thermal efficiency of 37%); this causes
to reduce the SRC efficiency to about 31.21%.
12 h  The major heat losses of the plant are caused by defocusing and
720 charging -discharging of the TES system. The total annual
223.44 defocusing heat losses of the optimum configuration of SRC/
185.5
200000
MED plant, which has the minimum LCOE and high solar share,
0.1758 are equal to 0.93% of the total thermal heat that is required by
1.57 the SRC/MED plant with 6 h of thermal storage. For 12 h of
thermal storage the defocusing fraction is equal to 2.15% of total
thermal need of the plants with two different GORs. The TES
charging-discharging heat losses are equal to 2.4% and 4% of the
total required thermal energy of the SRC/MED plant for 6 h and
12 h of thermal storage, respectively.
 Part of the water production costs is related to the MED thermal
energy cost that is caused because of the difference between the
LCOE of SRC/MED and reference SRC/Ref plant (without MED) as
the consequence of integrating the MED unit into the SRC plant.
The MED thermal energy cost constitute 35% and 41% of total
LCOW for GORs of 12 and 9.8, respectively, when 6 h of thermal
storage is considered in the calculations. Also for 12 h of thermal
storage, the portion of MED thermal energy cost would be
increased to approximately 42% and 46% to the total LCOW for
the plant with GORs of 12 and 9.8, respectively. It is worth to
mention that the portion of MED thermal cost is high as
compared to that of LCOE which is approximately equal to 16% of
total LCOW of the plant; considering the electricity consumption
of 1.55 kWh/m3 for the MED unit.
 The LCOE of the SRC/MED plant is approximately 15.4% higher
than the LCOE of the SRC plant without MED having the once
through cooling system and considering the condenser tem-
perature of 46
C (seawater cooling temperature of 35
C). For
the lower seawater cooling temperatures, the LCOE difference
between the SRC/MED and SRC/Ref plants would be increased
and this results in increasing the LCOW of the SRC/MED plant.
For Example, the decreasing in the seawater cooling tempera-
ture from 35
C to 25
C results in increasing the LCOW of the
SRC/MED plant by about 3.66% (from 1.91$m/3 to 1.98$/m3for
the SRC/MED with GOR of 12 and 6 h of thermal storage).
 For 6 h of thermal storage, the LCOW of the SRC/MED plant with
the GOR of 12 is approximately 5.35% lower than that with GOR
of 9.8. For 12 h of thermal storage, the percentage decrease in
the LCOW would be approximately 8.5% by application of the
MED unit with GOR of 12 instead of 9.8.
 The total annual fuel consumption would be decreased by about
53% and 98% for SRC/MED plant with 6 h and 12 h of thermal
storage, respectively as compared to the conventional fuel based
Rankine cycles.
 The sensitivity analysis shown that both LCOW and LCOE are
firstly most sensitive to solar field costs and secondly to the TES
cost. The fuel price and land cost have the lower effects on the
LCOE and LCOW of the plant as compared to solar field and TES
costs.
 Because the lower amount of total annual water production as
compare to the high annual electricity generation, the sensi-
tivity of LCOW to the solar field, TES and land cost parameters is
more than that of LCOE.
 The increasing of the SRC/MED plant scale to two times would
result in decreasing the LCOE and LCOW of the plant by about
17.17% and 27.33%, respectively.
 I.B. Askari, M. Ameri / Renewable Energy 117 (2018) 52e70 69

Appendix

Table.A1
Abbreviation list

Abbreviation Full Name Abbreviation Full Name

CAP Capital Annualized costs MENA Middle East and North Africa
CRF Capital Recovery Factor MVC Mechanical Vapor Compression
CSP Concentrated Solar Power NGB Natural Gas Boiler
DC Direct Costs NREL Natural Renewable Energy Laboratory
DF Defocused fraction OP Operation Costs
DMS Direct Molten Salt ORC Organic Rankine Cycle
DNI Direct Normal Irradiation PB Power Block
DSG Direct Steam Generation PSA Plataforma Solar deAlmería
FWH Feed Water Heater PTC Parabolic Trough Collector
GOR Gain Output Ratio RO Reverse Osmosis
H.EX Heat Exchanger SCWth Specific Cost of Water related to Thermal energy
H.P.T High Pressure steam Turbine SCth Specific Cost of Thermal energy
HTF Heat Transfer Fluid SHC Specific heat consumption
IAM Incidence Angle Modifiers SM Solar Multiple
IC Indirect Costs SORC Solar Organic Rankine Cycle
LCOE Levelized Cost Of Electricity SRC Solar Rankine Cycle
LCOW Levelized Cost Of Water SRC/MED Solar Rankine Cycle integrated with MED unit
LF Linear Fresnel SRC/Ref Reference Solar Rankine Cycle without MED
LF1 Linear Fresnel solar field of number one TAEG Total Annual Electricity Generation
LF2 Linear Fresnel solar field of number two TAWP Total Annual Water Production
L.P.T Low Pressure steam Turbine TES Thermal Energy Storage
MED Multi Effect Desalination TVC Thermal Vapor Compression

Fig. A2. Subprogram number two, the calculations for SRC/MED, LF2 solar field with
TES.

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