Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Review

Review on hybrid geothermal and solar power systems

Kewen Li a, b, c, *, Changwei Liu a, c, **, Shanshan Jiang a, b, Youguang Chen a
a
School of Energy Resources, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), 29 Xueyuan Road, 100083, Beijing, China
b
Key Laboratory of Marine Reservoir Evolution and Hydrocarbon Enrichment Mechanism, Ministry of Education, China
c
Stanford Geothermal Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305-2220, USA

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

Article history: Despite having many promising advantages for environment and sustainability, renewable energy is not
Received 26 June 2019 yet cost-competitive with crude oil in all locations due to issues with low capacity factor, grid instability,
Received in revised form and intermittency. In particular, hybrids of geothermal and solar power systems (e.g. photovoltaic and
23 November 2019
concentrated solar power) have been shown to be mutually beneficial and a promising combination of
Accepted 26 November 2019
Available online 27 November 2019
renewable energy sources. Worldwide, there are many areas with both high geothermal heat flux and
surface radiation, which makes integration of geothermal and solar energies possible. The geothermal
^ as de
Handling editor; Cecilia Maria Villas Bo industry targets geothermal resources with high temperatures, because the efficiency of power gener-
Almeida ation from thermal energy is directly proportional to the resource temperature. Unfortunately, most of
the geothermal resources have low to moderate temperatures of about 150
C or less. Alternatively, solar
Keywords: could be used to increase the temperature of geothermal fluids, significantly improving the efficiency of
Hybrid solar-geothermal systems geothermal power generation. Geothermal fluids can serve as storage systems for solar energy, which
Solar energy may solve many problems of solar systems such as weather dependence and instability. On the other
Geothermal resources
hand, the inclusion of photovoltaic (PV) panels in a geothermal power plant may be able to cope with the
Exergy
peak power demand during day time, which is helpful to extend the lifespan of geothermal fields.
High efficiency
In this review, we briefly discuss the fundamentals of solar and geothermal power systems. Secondly,
we review important progress in the literature towards stand-alone solar or geothermal power systems.
Thirdly, we highlight the configurations, mechanisms, and unique features of hybrid solar-geothermal
power plants, while also developing a methodology to evaluate their efficacy. Finally, we assess and
classify the predominant hybrid solar-geothermal power systems by summarizing and analyzing the
stand-alone efficiency, hybrid efficiency, and the percentage of incremental efficiency from the literature.
It can be concluded that combining geothermal and solar systems will increase the efficiency and power
generation of both energy systems, representing an exciting opportunity for both scientific and practical
exploration.
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Progress in solar power systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.1. PV and PVT solar systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.1.1. Progress in PV solar systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.1.2. Progress in PVT solar systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2. CSP solar collectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2.1. Parabolic trough collectors (PTC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2.2. Heliostat field collectors (HFC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

* Corresponding Author. School of Energy Resources, China University of Geo-

sciences (Beijing), 29 Xueyuan Road, 100083, Beijing, China
** Corresponding Author. Stanford Geothermal Program, Stanford University,
Stanford, CA, 94305-2220, USA
E-mail addresses: likewen@cugb.edu.cn (K. Li), chwliu@stanford.edu (C. Liu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119481
0959-6526/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481

2.2.3. Linear Fresnel collectors (LFC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2.2.4. Parabolic dish collectors (PDC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3. Comparison of four solar concentrating collectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.4. Comparison of PV with CSP systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Progress in geothermal power generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1. Types of geothermal power technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2. Features of different geothermal power technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.3. Cascaded utilization of geothermal heat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.4. Comparison of the installed global power capacity and cost with time for geothermal, PV, and CSP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4. Hybrid solar-geothermal systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.1. Progress in hybrid solar-geothermal systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.2. Categories of hybrid solar-geothermal systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.2.1. Solar preheating configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.2.2. Solar superheating configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2.3. Other emerging concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.3. Example projects of hybrid solar-geothermal power plants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5. Characteristics of hybrid solar-geothermal power systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.1. Advantages of hybrid solar-geothermal power systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5.2. Drawbacks of hybrid solar-geothermal power systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5.3. Critical technical challenges of hybrid solar-geothermal power systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
6. Evaluation of hybrid solar-geothermal power systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
7. Discussions and suggestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
8. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Declaration of competing interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

1. Introduction In this paper, we firstly discuss the fundamentals of solar and

geothermal power systems briefly based on our preliminary work
Growth of the world population and other factors contribute to (Li et al., 2016a, 2016b). Secondly, we review some of the important
the increase in energy demand. The diminishing resource of fossil progress in the stand-alone solar and geothermal power systems in
fuels and crude oil, as well as their detrimental environmental order for the reader to better understand the hybrid solar-
impacts (e.g. climate change) are increasing the demand for geothermal power generation systems. Thirdly, we review the
renewable, cleaner sources of energy. Achieving relatively cheap, configurations, mechanisms and unique features of the hybrid
sufficient, and sustainable supply of clean energy has been and will solar-geothermal power plants. Then we develop a method to
continue to be a great challenge in the future. Among modern evaluate such hybrid solar-geothermal power systems. Finally, we
renewable energies, wind, geothermal, and solar energy may be the evaluate and classify the main hybrid solar-geothermal power
most practical due to their relative maturity, market penetration, systems by summarizing and analyzing the stand-alone efficiency,
abundance, and the capacity to provide base-load (geothermal) or hybrid efficiency, and the percentage of incremental efficiency from
distribution (wind and solar) electricity (Li et al., 2015; Zhou et al., the literature. Note that we will not discuss wind energy in the
2013). Both geothermal and solar energies, however, have merits paper, instead, we will mainly focus on geothermal and solar power
and drawbacks as discussed by Li et al. (2015) and many others systems.
(Zhou et al., 2013). For example, the major drawback of geothermal
energy system is that relatively high temperatures are needed to
2. Progress in solar power systems
generate power, while an advantage is that it is a base-load system
and not dependent on weather. Additionally, although CSP
2.1. PV and PVT solar systems
(concentrated solar power) systems may drop to very low tem-
peratures at night or when the sun is not shining, they can achieve
2.1.1. Progress in PV solar systems
high temperatures over 350
C during the day by using a parabolic
There are two major techniques that can be used to convert solar
trough or other devices. The combination of the two renewables
energy into electric energy. The first technique is PV, in which
may overcome some of their disadvantages and will be discussed in
sunlight hits the panels made of semiconducting materials that
detail in later sections.
exhibit the photovoltaic effect, and solar energy is directly con-
There are many types of CSP and geothermal power generation
verted into electric energy. This is done without mechanical work
technologies, but how to choose the right technology to hybridize
or the use of turbines. PV systems are usually run and operated by
in order to obtain higher efficiency is one of the most important
collecting sunlight with a specific range of wavelengths. Photonic
issues. Many reports and papers on hybrids of geothermal and solar
energy greater than the band-gap energy is dissipated as heat
energies have been published in recent decades. However review
(thermal energy). However, photons with wavelengths longer than
on this subject have been few. The main purpose for us to review
the cutoff cannot be utilized by PV devices and the corresponding
these literatures and publications is to find the benefits, critical
photonic energy is wasted (Joshi et al., 2009a). This problem may be
problems, experiences, lessons, and the methodologies for using
solved using new types of PV systems. The physical processes
hybrid geothermal and solar energy systems efficiently. Further-
involved in the conversion of solar energy into electricity in PV
more, this review will allow researchers, scientists, and engineers
devices include light adsorption, electron transportation, and
in adjacent fields to achieve a rapid and deep understanding on the
recombination mechanisms, which are determined by the electro-
hybrid geothermal and solar energy systems.
optical properties of the semiconducting materials used for
 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481
manufacturing the PVs (Anyaka and Elijah, 2013). The second
technique is solar thermal technologies, where solar energy is
transferred into mechanical work through a thermodynamic cycle
and then turned into electricity (Desideri et al., 2013). CSP systems
convert the solar energy into high temperature thermal energy
using various configurations of mirrors, lenses and other objects.
After the heat is collected and concentrated, the thermal energy is
then transferred into electric energy through mechanical work by
using a turbine or other engines (Stoddard et al., 2006).
There are mainly four types of PV installations: grid-tied
centralized (large power plants), grid-tied distributed (roof/
ground mounted small installations), off-grid commercial (power
plants and industrial installations in remote areas), and off-grid
(mainly stand-alone roof/ground based systems for houses and
isolated applications), as reported by Kumar and Rosen (2011).
Installation type depends on the location where one of the four
type PV systems may be dominated in terms of the installed power.
In comparison with crystalline-silicon (c-Si) cells (another PV
technology), thin and flexible film technology holds the promise of
reducing the cost of PV array by lowering material and
manufacturing costs without jeopardizing the cells’ lifetime or
damaging the environment. Besides, the compound semiconductor
is the most efficient at absorbing light because each type of semi-
conductor absorbs different characteristic band gap energy. This
kind of compound semiconductor is a complicated stack of crys-
talline layers with different band gaps that are tailored to absorb
most of the solar radiation. Other PV technologies have also been
improved due to the introduction of nanoscale components. The
ability to control the energy band-gap of those components will
provide flexibility and modularity, as well as the possibility of
charge recombination. Thus, the structures from nanomaterials
that can absorb more sunlight are emphasized: nanotubes, quan-
tum dots (QDs), and “hot carrier” solar cells (El Chaar et al., 2011).
About 90% of total PV market is seen to be based on c-Si, with the
shares of mono c-Si and poly c-Si comprising about 42% and 45%,
respectively (Mints, 2010). The proportion of global mono c-Si rose
to 18% and the poly c-Si decreased to 76% by the end of 2015.
In 2016, the market share of mono c-Si has climbed to more than
20% (Khan and Arsalan, 2016). There are other factors influencing
the efficiency of PV systems. For example, weather conditions can
affect the efficiency of a PV system non-linearly by the irradiation
level and temperature. Clouds will rapidly decrease the total output
power of solar PV arrays under certain conditions. As shown in
Fig. 1, some fundamental studies have been conducted on
“biogenic” solar cells which could boost solar panels on cloudy days
(Srivastava et al., 2018).
PV systems generated only 753 MW worldwide in 2003. How-
ever, an annual 30% increase in deployment in past years makes PV
financially viable. The global installations of solar PV reached a
record of 2826 MW by June 2007 (Dubey et al., 2013), 10.66 GW in
2009 (Razykov et al., 2011) and 402 GW in 2017 exponentially
(REN21, 2018). China surpassed all expectations, adding more solar
PV capacity (nearly 53.1 GW) in 2017 than was added worldwide in
2015 (51 GW). At the end of 2017, China’s total installed capacity of
PV power generation reached 131.1 GW. For the first time, solar PV
was China’s leading source of new power capacity. It is noteworthy
that China’s annual PV power capacity grows more than 10 GW for
five consecutive years since 2013, ranking the first in the world
(REN21, 2018).
According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) latest re-
newables market analysis and forecast, new solar PV capacity grew
by 50% in 2016, with China accounting for almost half of the global
expansion. It was the first time that the power addition of solar PV
rose faster than any other fuels, surpassing the net growth in coal.
Boosted by a strong solar PV market, renewables will continue to
3
have a strong growth in coming years. By 2022, renewable elec-
tricity capacity may increase by 43% according to the new report
(REN21, 2018).
2.1.2. Progress in PVT solar systems
The solar PV array converts the absorbed solar radiation to
electricity, and the rest dissipates as heat (Lasnier, 1990; Chavez-
Urbiola et al., 2012), this motivates a solar PV/Thermal (PVT)
cogeneration system which is a combination of PV and solar ther-
mal components to produce both electricity and heat from one
integrated system. Vorobiev et al. (2006a, 2006b) discussed two
different types of stacked solar PVT hybrid power generation sys-
tems: a hybrid system with high temperature PV cells and a hybrid
system with low temperature PV cells. Zondag et al. (2008) studied
two adjacent collectors with areas of 1 m2 each, one for domestic
hot water and the other a PV module. A PVT collector could produce
about 44% more energy than the single system with similar areas.
Joshi et al. (2009a, 2009b) found that the PVT system performed
better than the PV system in terms of exergy efficiency, as the ef-
ficiency of the PVT system was as high as 15.7% while the PV system
was about 13.8%. The payback time for PVT collectors was found
considerably shorter than individual systems based on an investi-
gation in an Italian climate. Furthermore, the building integrated
photovoltaic (BIPV), an application of the PVT system that can
reduce installation cost, produces electricity and help to control
heating and cool loads of buildings. Because of this, BIPV gradually
appears in many countries.
Chow (2010) reviewed the history of the development of the
PVT systems and products. At the early stage, the research was
mainly targeted on the theoretical basis, the consolidation of the
conceptual ideas, and the feasibility of the basic PVT collector
design configuration. Over the past ten years or so, focus has shifted
towards the development of complementary products, innovative
systems, testing procedures, and design optimization. Solar ther-
mal and solar PV systems have each made remarkable progress, and
the combination of these two technologies can improve the effi-
ciency of solar energy utilization and have the opportunity to
expand the use of solar energy at large-scale.
The solar collectors converting solar radiant energy into useful
thermal energy through a fluid (water, air, glycol, oil, etc.) have
always been the key for PVT systems. The collected energy then
could be used to heat space or water, generate steam, or stored in a
thermal storage for later use (Kumar and Rosen, 2011).There are
two main types of solar collectors: liquid heating (PVT/liquid) and
air heating (PVT/air) types. Chow (2010) pointed out that the
geographical locations and actual application cases decide which
type of collectors should be chosen. For example, the locations with
low level of solar radiation and ambient temperature need space
heating almost all year round, so PVT/air can be useful and cost
effective. However, PVT/liquid may be a better choice for the lo-
cations with high solar input.
A typical CSP power plant consists of two major subsystems: the
solar field and the power block. The solar field collects solar energy
and converts it to heat. The power block then converts thermal
energy to electricity through mechanical work. Some power plants
contain thermal energy storage (TES) systems or tanks to store the
solar heat (Esen and Esen, 2005; Ozgen et al., 2009). In practice, the
real determinants are the materials chosen for light concentration
and absorption, heat transfer, and storage, as well as the power
conversion cycles (Barlev et al., 2011).
The solar collectors can be categorized into two types. One is
non-concentrating collectors, in which the area used for both
interception and absorption of incident radiation is the same. The
other type is concentrating collectors composed of sun-tracking
and concentrating solar collectors. This type can focus large
4 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481

Fig. 1. PV panels (Danwoolsey.com, 2018).

amounts of radiation onto a small receiving area by optical ele-
ments and follow the sun throughout its daily course to maintain
the maximum solar flux at their focus. Compared with non-
concentrating collectors, concentrating collectors are more costly
and generally associated with higher operation temperatures and
efficiencies. Normally, there are four types of concentrating col-
lectors: parabolic trough collectors (PTC), heliostat field collectors
(HFC), linear Fresnel reflectors (LFR), and parabolic dish collectors
(PDC). Fig. 2 shows these four types of concentrating collectors. The
related description to them is presented in the following sections.
2.2. CSP solar collectors
2.2.2. Heliostat field collectors (HFC)
The past few decades witnessed the great progress of HFC
technology (see Fig. 2b). Usually, HFC technology is considered as a
suitable structure for large-scale solar thermal plants. Because of
this feature, it is still interesting to many companies and de-
velopers. Another feature of the HFC system is the extremely high
temperatures at which the power plants operate. The temperature
can be over 500
C. These unique features of high operation tem-
peratures grant HFC plants great and excellent power generation
efficiencies while allowing them to be coupled with a variety of
applications. Nevertheless, the high initial capital investment and
the great maintenance expense are still some of the obstacles that
cannot be ignored and needed to be overcome in the future.

2.2.1. Parabolic trough collectors (PTC)

PTC is the most mature concentrated solar power design (see
Fig. 2a). An efficient, relatively inexpensive power production
scheme after multiple and significant advances in the design of
reflector and receiver have been made in the last decade to enhance
the efficiency and reduce the heat losses. The PTC scheme is also
suitable for easy storage, simple integration with both fossil fuels
and other renewable energy sources.
2.2.3. Linear Fresnel collectors (LFC)
LFR technology (see Fig. 2c) offers many of PTC system’s ad-
vantages. These include relatively low cost, moderate power gen-
eration efficiency, and feasibility of large-scale. In particular, LFR
can readily be integrated with other applications, where one
example is Direct Steam Generation (DSG) facility and thermal
energy transport system with molten salts. The central receiver rme

Fig. 2. Four types of concentrating collectors(Sandia National Laboratories SunLab, 2019).

 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481
further reduces cost. However, further enhancing the system effi-
ciency and maximizing the collected solar radiation are still some of
the ongoing challenges. Innovation in the design of receivers and
the structure organization of reflectors have made LFR systems
somewhat inexpensive in comparison with other CSP technologies.
2.2.4. Parabolic dish collectors (PDC)
Despite its current cost, the PDC system (see Fig. 2d) has high
thermal to electricity efficiency due to continuous design im-
provements of reflector and collector structures. The features of
PDC are similar to those of HFC. The use of Stirling engines in PDC
systems alleviates the heat loss and high cost associated with heat
transport. A significant yet unresolved problem, however, is the
difficulty to couple with thermal storage systems.
2.3. Comparison of four solar concentrating collectors
As analyzed and discussed above, the four different types of
solar concentrating collectors have both advantages and disad-
vantages, which is compared and listed in Table 1. One can see that
HFC has the highest temperature and probably the greatest effi-
ciency from thermal to electric energy.
The conversion of solar thermal energy into electricity generally
requires the use of a thermodynamic cycle. The most common
thermodynamic cycle used is Rankine cycle, which usually uses
water as its working fluid. The Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) utilizes
organic fluids such as toluene or n-pentane as working fluids,
which can operate at low temperatures (70e90
C). Lower tem-
peratures result in lower thermodynamic efficiency, but this
drawback may be offset by the lower heat inputs required to drive
the system. Another thermodynamic cycle, Brayton cycle, is
generally operated at much higher temperatures than the Rankine
cycle. Despite this, the overall efficiencies of large-scale steam
generators and gas turbines seem to be similar. The combined cycle
utilizes a hybrid of the Rankine and Brayton cycles and can achieve
higher efficiencies than stand-alone systems. As the system be-
comes more complex, the costs become considerably higher.
Therefore, a detailed technoeconomic analysis of the combined
systems must be conducted in order to determine whether to take
the benefits provided by the enhanced design of the systems.
2.4. Comparison of PV with CSP systems
Compared to CSP, PV is safer and more reliable, because it has no
mechanical moving parts, simple maintenance, short construction
period. These advantages contributed to the rapid development of
PV all over the world. Razykov et al. (2011) suggested that the focus
should be on developing low-cost manufacturing technology, as
Table 1
The comparison of four concentrating collectors (Tiwari and Sahota, 2017).
Parabolic Trough Collectors (PTC)
Temperature 60e300
(oC)
Concentration 15e45
Ratio (suns)
Cost Relatively inexpensive
Advantage Efficient, relatively inexpensive, suitable for easy
storage scheme, simple integration with both fossil
fuels and other renewable energy sources
Disadvantage As the heat absorbing pipe rotates with the heat
collecting surface, the power consumption is great.
5
the efficiencies of the most advanced technologies in PV systems
have already been satisfactory. Singh (2013) also pointed out that
the price of energy units produced by PV panels is one order of
magnitude higher than conventional energy supplied to urban
areas because the technologies related to PV systems have not been
fully established. This may still be true even now.
The efficiency of power generation by commercial PV is about
14e23%. That of commercial CSP plants is about 15e20% for tower
systems, 15% for parabolic trough systems, 8e10% for linear Fresnel
systems (which is usually much lower than others because of the
low optical system efficiency), and 25e30% for the dish system. It is
still far from large-scale commercialization due to the high cost and
unreliability of Stirling engines although the dish system has much
higher efficiency than other types of CSP systems (Ju et al., 2017).
One can see that the efficiency of PV has a similar range as most of
the CSP systems now.
CSP’s growth is much slower than PV systems in recent decades.
After the construction of the 354 MW power plants from 1981 to
1991, the commercial deployment of CSP systems restarted in 2007
(REN21, 2013), now leading to a global capacity estimated at 4.9 GW
in 2017. Although global capacity increased by just over 2% in 2017,
the CSP industry was active, with a total power about 2 GW of
projects under construction around the world, particularly in China
and in the Middle East as well as North Africa (MENA) ron (REN21,
2018).
3. Progress in geothermal power generation
Geothermal energy is the heat generated and stored in the
earth. In a hydrothermal reservoir, heat is mainly stored in rock
with water and recovered directly by extracting water out from the
rock. In a hot dry rock (HDR) reservoir, heat is stored in hot rock
with little or no water. Here, heat extraction is usually performed by
means of stimulation and a type of heat exchanger system e
enhanced geothermal system (EGS). The total thermal energy of the
earth is estimated to be about 1013 EJ and is immense (Shortall et al.,
2015). Utilization of geothermal energy can be categorized into two
types: electricity generation and direct use. High-enthalpy re-
sources characterized by a temperature of above 150
C is suitable
for power generation. Low-enthalpy resources typically present
temperatures below 150
C, and their geothermal potential is still
underutilized, making heat generation the main application. These
low-enthalpy resources produce electricity in 24 countries world-
wide and have other various direct uses in other 74 countries.
Moreover, global direct use of geothermal energy can be further
divided into categories of energy utilization. Some of the categories
include: geothermal heat pumps, space heating, greenhouse heat-
ing, aquaculture pond heating, agricultural drying, industrial uses,
Heliostat Field Linear Fresnel Collectors (LFC) Parabolic Dish Collectors (PDC)
Collectors (HFC)
150e2000 60e250 100e500
100e1500 10e40 100e1000
High Relatively low High
Suitable for large- Relatively low cost, feasibility of large- The use of Stirling engines
scale solar thermal scale, the readiness to integrate with other alleviates the heat loss and cost
plants applications associated with heat transport
High initial capital Further enhancing efficiency and Expensive, difficult to couple
investment, great maximizing the amount of the solar with thermal storage systems.
maintenance expense radiation collected are still great
challenges.
6 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481
bathing and swimming, cooling/snow melting and others (Balbay
and Esen, 2010; Esen, 2000, 2004; Esen et al., 2013, 2017).
Figs 3 and 4 show the installed capacity of geothermal direct
utilization and worldwide utilization by the afore-mentioned cat-
egories (Lund and Boyd, 2015). Certainly, geothermal energy is one
of the most promising energy alternatives to fossil fuels (Rubio-
Maya et al., 2015). Current worldwide installed geothermal power
capacity is around 14 GW and the distribution is shown in Fig. 5 (Li
et al., 2015; Shortall et al., 2015). At present, the United States has
the greatest geothermal power installed capacity, which is more
than 3450 MW. The Philippines has more than 2000 MW. China’s
shallow geothermal and hydrothermal heating/cooling has been
popular. By the end of 2015, China has the greatest amount of
geothermal direct use and the shallow geothermal heating area
reached 392 million square meters (CDRE, 2016). China added
15 MW of geothermal power in 2018 and the total installed power
was increased to 43 MW (see Fig. 5).
The growth of geothermal power capacity and the variance of
crude oil price over time is displayed in Fig. 6. One can see that the
growth of the total installed geothermal generation capacity has
approximately followed the oil price cycle (Tartie re and Astolfi,
2017). Nicolini and Tavoni (2017) investigated if policy support for
renewable electricity has been effective in promoting renewables in
the five largest European countries during the period 2000e2010.
They found that a 1% (1cV) increase in the incentive (i.e. tariffs)
leads to an increase in renewable generation of 0.4e1%. Feed-in
tariffs appear to outperform tradeable green certificates.
Prior to international commitments to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions (Kyoto Protocol in 2005), geothermal energy was an
important substitute for natural gas and oil for power generation,
particularly for countries that lacked indigenous fossil fuel reserves
such as Iceland, the Azores, the Philippines, Japan, Central America,
and New Zealand. At present, over half (54%) of total installed
generation capacity resides in the countries that are net energy
importers. This reflects government policies to preserve foreign
currency reserves, promote energy security, and (in some in-
stances) has provided electricity at a lower price than imported
fuels. (World Energy Council, 2016). In 2008, geothermal energy
represented around 0.1% of the global primary energy portfolio, but
estimates predict that it could fulfill around 3% of global electricity
demand, as well as 5% of global heating demand by 2050.
Exploitation has been focused mainly on high-enthalpy
geothermal resources and less on the resources of medium and
low enthalpy. In many cases, the medium-low temperature
geothermal resources have not been used for generating electricity
because of high initial cost, low system efficiency, and limited po-
wer generation technologies that are required specifically for low
Fig. 3. Geothermal direct applications worldwide in 2015, distributed by percentage of
total installed capacity (MWt) (Lund and Boyd, 2015).
Fig. 4. Geothermal direct applications worldwide in 2015, distributed by percentage of
total energy used (TJ/year) (Lund and Boyd, 2015).
temperatures. The current development of geothermal power
generation projects are conducted mainly in dry steam and flash
mode. In the last 10 years or so, however, low to medium tem-
perature geothermal binary ORC systems have been developed
rapidly and the installed power capacity have grown quickly. The
new installed capacity increased from 50 MW in 2009 to 350 MW
in 2017. As of December 31st, 2016, the ORC technology represents a
total installed capacity around 2701 MW, distributed over 705
projects and 1754 ORC units (Tartie re and Astolfi, 2017).
3.1. Types of geothermal power technologies
Power generation from high-enthalpy geothermal resources
generally involves a thermodynamic cycle similar to that of con-
ventional thermal power plants using a steam turbine, a generator,
and a condenser. There are different geothermal power technolo-
gies depending on the specific conditions of the geothermal re-
sources (Martín-Gamboa et al., 2015). Typically, there are three
common technologies for generating electricity from geothermal
energy in global electricity production: dry steam, flash steam, and
binary cycle power generation (See Fig. 7a). These three power
generation technologies are suitable for geothermal resources with
high, medium, and low temperatures, respectively. Either water or
air may be used for cooling, depending on site conditions.
The installed capacity of different power technologies in the
world vs. time is depicted in Fig. 7b. Binary plants are used with low
temperature resources while flash and dry steam plants are used
with high temperature resources. Flash and dry steam technologies,
according to Geothermal Energy Association (GEA, 2015), continue
to be the more prevalent and the most developed. Flash technol-
ogies, including double and triple flash, make up about 58% of the
global producing megawatts, while dry steam is about a quarter
(25%) and binary is about 16%. The last remaining 1% of power in-
cludes back pressure and other nontraditional types of geothermal
technologies.
It is worth noting that the binary cycle power generation tech-
nology, which is suitable for geothermal resources with low tem-
peratures, also significantly contributes to the power output.
Therefore, low enthalpy geothermal resources may play an
important role in renewable power generation.
3.2. Features of different geothermal power technologies
Three different geothermal power generation technologies (dry
steam, flash steam, and binary cycle power generation) may have
very different thermal to electricity conversion efficiencies. As
shown in Fig. 8, Zarrouk and Moon (2014) analyzed the conversion
efficiency of electricity generation from 94 geothermal plants and
found that the highest reported conversion efficiency was
approximately 21% at the Darajat vapor-dominated system, with a
 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481
Fig. 5. Installed worldwide geothermal power capacity in 2018 worldwide [14GWe] (Source: Richter, 2018).
worldwide efficiency average of around 12%. The presence of binary
plants in low-enthalpy resources has allowed the use of energy
from fluid with enthalpy as low as 306 kJ/kg, resulting in a net
conversion efficiency of about 10% on the high side (see Fig. 8).
Some of the binary plants have an efficiency as low as 1% at low
temperatures. In this case, as reported by Zheng et al. (2015), hybrid
geothermal and solar systems might be the most effective approach
to reducing electricity generation cost, improving plant efficiency,
and expanding the lifespan of geothermal reservoirs. It is believed
that the thermal efficiency of geothermal power generation tech-
nology will further increase with the development of new tech-
nologies such as supercritical carbon dioxide cycles for power
generation and the improvement of the existing technologies
(Crespi et al., 2017).
Summarized in Table 2 are the features of the three different
types of geothermal power generation technologies. The fluid
temperature in steam power plants is usually much higher than
that in binary power plants.
The costs of geothermal power projects are highly site-sensitive
and type-sensitive. As reported by International Renewable Energy
Agency (IRENA) in 2017, the typical costs of geothermal power
plants range from $1870 to $5050 per kilowatt (kW). Binary
geothermal power plants are normally more expensive than direct
dry steam and flash power plants. The LCOE (Levelized Cost of
Electricity) of a geothermal power plant ranges from $ 0.04 to $ 0.14
per kilowatt-hour (kWh), assuming maintenance costs of $ 110 per
kW per year and a 25-year economic life (IRENA, 2018). For the
14000
Geothermal Installed Generation Capacity
12000
period cumm
10000
Installed MWe
8000
6000
4000
2000
0 0
Fig. 6. Geothermal generation capacity growth (Tartie
7
detail breakdown cost ratio, one can see from Table 2 that power
plant equipment, steam field development, and surface installation
costs have the greatest percentage of the total cost, over 50% in
almost all of the cases, followed by the drilling cost.
3.3. Cascaded utilization of geothermal heat
The temperature of the geothermal fluids after power genera-
tion remains relatively high in many cases, especially in the cases of
dry steam and flash power plants. This is because electricity gen-
eration from geothermal energy cannot use up of the heat. This is
also true to generate electricity by using any other types of thermal
energy. As pointed out by Rubio-Maya et al. (2015), the temperature
of the geothermal fluids after power generation may be greater
than 80
C. Thus, the remaining thermal energy could be used. As
shown in Fig. 9, the utilization potential of geothermal heat is
classified for various applications according to temperature scale
€ rnsson, 2011). Cascaded use of geothermal heat is an attempt to
(Bjo
arrange varying modes of utilization to achieve optimal utilization
of the geothermal fluid. Rubio-Maya et al. (2015) studied the inte-
grated utilization of the geothermal resources in multiple appli-
cations by cascade utilization. They suggested that cascade
geothermal systems with electricity generation are appropriate for
geothermal resources with a temperature greater than 90
C
because there may be more opportunities to integrate various
thermal levels. When geothermal resources have a temperature
below 90
C, cascade systems without electricity generation and
120
100
Oil price
crude $ per barrel
80
60
40
20
re and Astolfi, 2017).
8 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481

(a) Dry steam, flash steam, and binary cycle power plants (Source: U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy)

14000

12000
Installed Capacity (MW)

10000

8000

6000

4000

2000

Back Pressure Binary Triple Flash Double Flash Single Flash Dry Steam

(b) Installed capacity of three different types of power technologies in the world (GEA, 2015)
Fig. 7. Three different types of geothermal power technologies (dry steam, flash steam, and binary cycle power plants).

30
single flash pl ant
dou ble flash plan t
25 triple fla sh pla nt
hybrid- steam binary plant
single flash an d d ry stea m pla nts
20
dou ble flash plan t
Efficiency,%

bina ry plan t

15

10

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Reservoir Enthalpy,kJ/kg
Fig. 8. Geothermal power plant generic efficiency (Zarrouk and Moon, 2014).
 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481 9

Table 2
Features of different types of geothermal power generation technology.

Technical performance Typical current international values and ranges

Energy input/output Hydrothermal fluid/Electricity

Well drilling technologies Heat Slim Full-size well Injection well

gradient well well
Depth, meters (IRENA, 2018) <300 1000- >1600 Varying depth
1600
Final diameter of well size, inches (IRENA, 2018) <6 <6 >6 Varying size
Power plant technologies Dry steam Flash steam Binary cycle
Steam quality Dry (>99.995%) Wet Dry/Wet
(Dimarzio et al., 2015)
Typical steam temperature,
C (MIT, 2006) >150 >180 100e150
Typical plant size (capacity), MW 0.3e110 0.3e110 0.1e45
(IRENA, 2018)
Typical total installed costs, US$ 400-700(Kumar and 1900-3800 (IRENA, 2018) 2250-5500 (IRENA, 2018)
Rosen, 2011;
Kutscher, 2000)
Capacity factor, % (IRENA, 2018) >80 (worldwide),
>90 (some individual plants or units)
CO2 emissions, gCO2eq/kWh (IRENA, 2018) Lifecycle assessments of greenhouse gases: 6-79
Cost Percentage Typical current international values and ranges
Typical installed cost breakdown Indonesia/EU Flash steam power Flash steam power plant in EU (Schiel and Binary-cycle power plant in EU (Schiel and
plant in Indonesia Schlaich, 2015) Schlaich, 2015)
(110 MW e IRENA,
2018)
Power plant, steam field development/Power plant and 56 56 55
surface installations (%)
Drilling wells/Exploration, stimulation (%) 24 21 34
Infrastructure/Interconnection, heating process (%) 7 7 1
Project management and engineering supervision/Planning, 3 12 5
management, land (%)
Others/Insurance (%) 10 4 5

only thermal uses are practical. The main benefits of Cascade sys-
tems include the increased profitability of the facility, maximized
consumption of geothermal resources of medium-low enthalpy,
greater local development of communities, better social and envi-
ronmental friendliness.
3.4. Comparison of the installed global power capacity and cost
with time for geothermal, PV, and CSP
The power capacity generated by solar PV, CSP, and geothermal
energy in the past few decades is summarized in this section. Fig. 10
shows a semi-log plot of the installed global power capacity and
energy generated from geothermal, PV, and CSP over time. Solar PV
power initially showed no growth, but it had the greatest growth
rate after 1990, followed by CSP. One can see that the installed
power of solar PV and CSP grew exponentially in the last 20 years,
but geothermal power maintained a nearly linear growth with a
small positive slope.
Fig. 11aeb shows that the total installed costs and LCOE of PV
and CSP decline with time while the LCOE of geothermal power
generation remains nearly constant and even rebounds after a
period of decline. Due to research and development towards the
effects of mass production and large unit scales, the cost of most
renewable energy is reduced by 10e20% each time the installed
capacity doubles (IRENA, 2018). Fig. 11c demonstrates that the ca-
pacity factor of geothermal power plants is much greater than
those of PV and CSP.
Li et al. (2015) made a comparison among major modern
renewable energies, including geothermal and solar energy, from
several aspects: cost, payback time, construction time, power
generation size, resource capacity, characteristics of resources, so-
cial and environmental effects. The main reasons that geothermal
power has lagged behind solar might be high initial investment,
long payback time and construction time, and difficulty to modu-
larize. However, geothermal has other advantages such as higher
thermal efficiency, great stability, weather-proof and base-load
abilities, and less land requirement.

4. Hybrid solar-geothermal systems

As discussed previously, geothermal and solar energies have

merits and drawbacks (Li et al., 2015; Zhou et al., 2013). A hybrid
solar-geothermal power plant may outperform the stand-alone
energy system by taking over some of the advantages and over-
coming some problems of the two energy resources because of the
mutual compensation in energy properties and structures. To
realize the above outperformance, it requires that both solar and
Fig. 9. The utilization potential of geothermal heat according to a temperature scale geothermal assets are abundant at the same locations. Is this con-
€ rnsson, 2011).
(Bjo dition satisfied countrywide or worldwide? This will be analyzed
10 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481

1000 10000
Solar PV
CSP
100
Global Power Capacity, GW

8000 Geothermal power

10

6000
1

USD/kW
0.1 4000
Geothermal
CSP
0.01
PV 2000
0.001
1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
Year 0
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
(a) Year
10
(a)Total installed costs
Global Energy Capacity, EJ

1
0.4
0.1 Solar PV
CSP

0.01 Geothermal power

Levelised cost of electricity

0.3

0.001 Geothermal
CSP
0.0001 0.2
PV

0.00001
1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
0.1
Year
(b)
Fig. 10. (a) Comparison of the installed global power capacity and (b) energy generated 0
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
from geothermal, solar PV and CSP.
Year

and discussed in the following section.

(b) LCOE
Fig. 12a, depicted from NREL (National Renewable Energy Lab- 1
oratory) of DOE (Department of Energy of the United States), shows
the most promising areas for CSP plants worldwide. Also shown in
Fig. 12a is the hottest known geothermal rons. One can see that 0.8

some of the solar and geothermal “sweet spot” areas are over- Solar PV
lapped, which forms the base for integrating the two renew-
Capacity factor

0.6 CSP
ables(Spadacini et al., 2016; SolarGIS, 2016). As a specific example, Geothermal power
Fig. 12bec shows the distribution of solar and geothermal resources
in China and the United States respectively, which also demon- 0.4
strates the distribution consistency, to some extent, of the two re-
newables in the two countries(Wang, 2015; SolarGIS, 2015;
0.2
U.S.NREL, 2016).

0
4.1. Progress in hybrid solar-geothermal systems 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Year
As early as in 1975, an assessment of solar-geothermal hybrid
system was reported by Finlayson and Kammer. Their reports drew (c) Capacity factor
much attention to solar-geothermal hybrid systems for power
Fig. 11. Global weighted average total installed costs, LCOE, and capacity factors
generation (Dimarzio et al., 2015; Ghasemi et al., 2014; Kondili and (IRENA, 2018).
Kaldellis, 2006; Mathur, 1979). Because of the mutual compensa-
tion in energy properties and structures, a hybrid system inherits
the advantages of both solar and geothermal sources. Thermody-
of solar-geothermal facilities for poly-generation purposes such as
namically, the hybrid solar-geothermal power plants were found to
electricity, heating, cooling and even fresh water production (Calise
outperform the stand-alone plants when a fully optimized oper-
et al., 2016; Ruzzenenti et al., 2014; Tempesti et al., 2012).
ating mode was employed. The net power output of hybrid power
Lentz and Almanza (2006b) investigated the feasibility of using
plants is increased because of the increased solar irradiance and/or
parabolic trough solar field to increase the enthalpy of fluids from
geothermal fluid temperature or the reduced ambient tempera-
geothermal wells in order to raise the steam quantity. The system
tures. Besides, the hybrid solar-geothermal power plants can be
efficiency from heat to electricity could be enhanced at higher
cost-competitive. Recent studies demonstrated the great potential
 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481 11

(a) World (Spadacini et al., 2016; SolarGIS, 2016)

(b) China (Wang, 2015; SolarGIS, 2015)

(c) USA (U.S. DOE NREL, 2016)

Fig. 12. Distribution of geothermal heat flux (left side) and solar radiation index (right side).

temperatures. On the other hand, the increase in steam-water flow
rates made it possible to prevent the precipitation of some salts since
the salt solubility was increased. Kondili and Kaldellis (2006) pro-
posed an integrated methodology for the design of a
geothermalesolar greenhouse to minimize fossil fuel consumption.
The methodology had been implemented in a selected area, which
showed that the proposed system configuration was economically
attractive.
Boghossian (2011) studied a Kalina geothermal-solar hybrid
cycle using an ammonia-water mixture as working fluid and
12 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481
compared the performance with two independent single energy-
mode plants: a geothermal binary organic plant and a solar ther-
mal steam plant. It was found that there is no synergy between
geothermal and solar energy modes on a design power comparison
basis. Specifically, the hybrid plant produces 29% less net power
than the combined single energy mode plants. Nielsen and
Børgesen (2012) optimized a geothermal heat pump which is
supplemented by a hybrid solar system by cooling the solar cells,
and the electric efficiency increased up to about 20% because of the
solar cells’ negative temperature dependent characteristic of
0.4e0.5%/
C. The heat removed from the solar cells can also be
utilized, which directly results in a decreased need of external
supply of electricity and hot water.
Zhou et al. (2013) proposed a binary geothermal system with
solar boosting. They investigated the effects of parameters such as
solar irradiance, ambient temperature, geothermal resource quality
and geographical location on the hybrid system performance.
Compared with the standalone solar and geothermal plants, the
power output could be increased significantly. In addition, the net
power output of the hybrid plant was found to increase as a result
of increasing the solar irradiance and/or geothermal reservoir
temperature or reducing the ambient temperature (Ayub et al.,
2015). Ghasemi et al. (2014) designed a model to hybridize the
ORC geothermal power system and a low-temperature solar trough
facility, which was utilized in parallel with the geothermal system
to vaporize part of the working fluid. Unsurprisingly, the hybrid
system performed better. The data of the hybrid system showed a
5.5% boost in annual power generation and 17.9% increment in ef-
ficiency compared to the stand-alone geothermal and solar sys-
tems, respectively. Additionally, the hybrid system had a higher
maximum second-law efficiency of about 3.4%, compared to sepa-
rate geothermal and solar systems at all ambient temperatures.
Ayub et al. (2015) developed an integrated model for a hybrid
solar-binary geothermal system and reported that LCOE could be
decreased by 2% for the hybrid system compared to the stand-alone
geothermal system. An optimization of the stand-alone geothermal
ORC resulted in about 8% reduction in LCOE. One of the main
problems that need be overcome for ORC systems is high initial
investment. An 8% reduction in LCOE is significant and helpful for
the economics of ORC systems suitable for low enthalpy geothermal
resources. Cardemil et al. (2016) proposed a thermodynamic model
to evaluate the performance of single- and double-flash geothermal
power plants assisted by a parabolic trough solar concentrating
collector field, considering four different geothermal reservoir
conditions. The hybrid single-flash power plant could produce at
least 20% additional power output, depending on the characteris-
tics of the geothermal resource. Moreover, all of the analyzed cases
increased the energy efficiency of the process by at least 3%. The
developed model also allowed assessing the reduction in the con-
sumption of the geothermal fluid from the reservoir when the plant
power output stays constant, up to 16% for the hybrid single-flash,
and 19% for the hybrid double-flash.
Calise et al. (2016) developed a novel solar-geothermal poly-
generation plant which was designed to supply electrical, thermal,
cooling energy, and fresh water for a small community. The hybrid
system was equipped with an ORC fueled by medium-enthalpy
geothermal energy and by a PTC solar field. Geothermal brine
was also used for space heating and cooling purposes. Geothermal
fluid supplied heat to a multi-effect distillation unit, also producing
desalinized water from seawater. Results showed that global exergy
efficiency varied between 40% and 50% during the ‘‘Thermal Re-
covery Mode” operation, between 16% and 20% during the ‘‘Cooling
mode” operation. It was further found that electricity, chilled water,
cooling water and desalinated water exergoeconomic costs varied
respectively in the ranges 0.1475e0.1722 V/kWh, 0.1863e0.1888
V/kWh, 0.01612e0.01702 V/kWh and 0.5695e0.6023 V/kW hex.
Jiang et al. (2017) integrated the CO2-based EGS into the solar
power plant. Comparison with the stand-alone CO2-EGS and CO2-
solar thermal systems, the hybrid system had equal or higher effi-
ciency than the sum of the two separate systems. Moreover, the
operating pressure could be decreased and the recompression
compressor could be removed in the hybrid system which reduced
the cost of the system installation and maintenance. McTigue et al.
(2018) analyzed five methods of solar heat addition in a double-
flash geothermal plant. The most suitable approach involved
reheating the brine after the first flash tank. The solar heat added to
this brine was converted to electricity with an efficiency of 24.3%.
This approach had a reduced risk of depositing minerals on the heat
exchangers compared to other methods. Retrofitting in this way
might be cost effective since the existing power block, pipework,
and condenser could be used.
We will analyze some of the above publications in more details
in next sections.
4.2. Categories of hybrid solar-geothermal systems
According to the literature and publications available, the con-
figurations of the hybrid solaregeothermal power generation sys-
tems can mainly be categorized as below:
(1) Solar preheating configuration where solar energy is used to
preheat the brine either by increasing the brine temperature
or its dryness fraction (i.e. the steam quality).
(2) Solar superheating configuration in which solar energy is
employed to superheat the working fluid from the
geothermal power cycle.
(3) Geothermal preheating configuration where geothermal
energy is used to preheat the feed water in a steam Rankine
cycle type solar thermal power plant.
(4) Other emerging concepts.
We analyzed and summarized the technologies of hybrid solar-
geothermal systems from the related publications. The results are
listed in Table 3. One can see that most of the cases shown in Table 3
are hypothetical. This shows that the hybrid technology of solar-
geothermal systems has not been widely put into practice yet and
may have a great potential to be developed further. Another feature
is that the targeted temperature ranged from 150 to 200
C in many
cases studied. This might be because the hybrid technology of solar-
geothermal systems works most efficiently in this specific tem-
perature range. According to the information in Table 3, one can
also see that the focus of the hybrid technology has been mainly on
the solar preheating and solar superheating configurations. As
shown in Table 3, most of the types of solar systems are PTC. Few
studies were conducted to investigate the geothermal preheating
configuration. In the following sections, we mainly discuss the solar
preheating and superheating configurations.
4.2.1. Solar preheating configurations
In the solar preheating configuration, solar energy is first
collected and is then used to preheat the brine or other fluids. The
purpose is to either increase the brine temperature or raise the
steam dryness. The configurations used to increase the vapor
fraction can be classified to two types:
(1) Direct Steam Generation (DSG): The geothermal brine is
evaporated by flowing directly into the solar collectors. Two types
of structures were reported by Lentz and Almanza (2006a, 2006b)
and the schematics are depicted in Fig. 13a and b. Lentz and
Almanza (2006a, 2006b) tested the feasibility of the solar-
geothermal hybrid system in Cerro Prieto geothermal field in
 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481 13

Table 3
Technical assessments of the hybrid solar-geothermal systems.

Authors, Geothermal power Geothermal reservoir Types of main Type Working Hybridization approach and Efficiency (%) LCOE ($/MWh)
year plant (existing/ temperature and power cycle of fluid operating mode
hypothetical) and its brine flow rate Solar
location system

McTigue Hypothetical, Coso High pressure Double-flash LFR Steam Five models (INJ1, JIN2, COND, 17.3 80 ± 10
et al. geothermal field in 169.2
C,48 kg/s geothermal plant PRE, FT1, see Fig. 17)
(2018) USA Low Pressure
132.5
C,48 kg/s
Bonyadi Hypothetical, Turkey 150
C,100 kg/s Solar-Topping PTC R134a Topping steam Rankine cycle for 20.50 163e172
et al. (37.85
N latitude and Steam Rankine solar energy;
(2018) 27.85
E longitude) Cycle Binary bottoming cycle for
Geothermal- geothermal resources
Bottom Binary
Cycle
Jiang et al. Hypothetical, China 400e600
C closed-loop e CO2 Working fluid superheat mode 21.24 (400
C) e
(2017) supercritical CO2 based on CO2-EGS system 21.93 (500
C)
Brayton cycles 22.44 (600
C)
Cardemil Hypothetical, 205e240
C Single and PTC Steam Brine preheat mode Single-Flash:32.41 Single-
et al. Atacama Desert in double-flash e38.88; flash:64.65
(2016) Chile and Cerro geothermal Double- Double-
Prieto geothermal power plants Flash:40.52e44.12 flash:56.89
field in Mexico (exergy efficiency)
Calise et al. Hypothetical, Italy 160
C,40 kg/s Renewable Poly- PTC Isopentane Working fluid superheat mode 40-50 (exergy Electricity:164
(2016) generation efficiency) e193
system Chilled
(including ORC, water:193.3
PTC, TRS, MED) e212.2
Cooling
water:18.10
e19.11
Desalinated
water: 639.6
e676.1
Ayub et al. Hypothetical, Italy 160
C,40 kg/s Subcritical PTC Isopentane Working fluid superheat mode, 5e10 64.98
(2015) geothermal Brine preheat mode
binary plant
(ORC)
Ghasemi Hypothetical, 145
C,667.8 kg/s Subcritical PTC Isopentane Working fluid superheat mode e e
et al. geothermal power geothermal
(2014) plant operated by binary plant
ENEL GREEN POWER (ORC)
in Italy
Zhou Hypothetical, 150
C, 50 kg/s Supercritical/ PTC Isopentane Working fluid superheat mode Supercritical:10.08 Supercritical:101-
(2014) Australia Subcritical Subcritical:11.59 160
geothermal ORC Subcritical:105-
165
Peterseim Hypothetical, 150e200
C Single-flash PTC/ Steam Superheating the vapor fraction of e e
et al. Australia power plant LFC/ the brine and/or reheating the
(2013) PDC liquid fraction of brine solar
energy
Zhou et al. Hypothetical, 120
C,50 kg/s Air-cooled PTC Isopentane Working fluid superheat mode 27.17 165e222
(2013) Australia geothermal
binary plant
(ORC)


Zhou et al. Hypothetical, 180 C, 50 kg/s Subcritical PTC Isopentane Brine preheat mode 13.00 e
(2011) Australia geothermal
binary plant
(ORC)
Manente Existing, USA 154.5
C, 457.1 kg/s Subcritical PTC Isobutane Brine preheat mode e 182e191
et al. (brine reinjection geothermal industrial
(2011) temperature:62.8
C) binary plant grade
(ORC)
Astolfi et al. Hypothetical, Italy 150
C, 100 kg/s Supercritical PTC R-134a (up Brine preheat mode 23 146.4e277.3
(2011) and USA (Imperial, (brine reinjection geothermal to 270
C)
San Diego, Palermo, temperature) binary
Pisa)
Mir et al. Hypothetical, Chile 250
C Single-flash PTC Steam Working fluid superheat mode e e
(2011) geothermal plant


Boghossian Hypothetical, USA 150 C,100 kg/s Geothermal PTC NH3eH2O Working fluid superheat mode 17e20 e
(2011) Kalina cycle mixture
plant
Greenhut Existing seven-unit 150
C,100 kg/s Supercritical PTC R-134a Working fluid superheat mode, Flash:17.4e18.0 190e250
et al. dual cycle binary (brine reinjection geothermal (101 brine preheat mode (including ORC:10.8e11.4
(2010) plant, USA temperature:70
C) e180
C) brine preheat, recirculation,
(continued on next page)
14 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481

Table 3 (continued )

Authors, Geothermal power Geothermal reservoir Types of main Type Working Hybridization approach and Efficiency (%) LCOE ($/MWh)
year plant (existing/ temperature and power cycle of fluid operating mode
hypothetical) and its brine flow rate Solar
location system

flash-binary/ preheat circulation, and cascade

binary plant reheat)


Todorovic Existing, Husavic, 125 C, 90 kg/s Geothermal e NH3eH2O Superheating the vapor fraction of e e
(2009) Iceland Kalina cycle mixture the brine and/or reheating the
plant liquid fraction of brine using solar
energy
Alvarenga Existing, 154
C Geothermal flash PTC Steam Working fluid superheat mode e e
et al. Ahuachapan plant
(2008); geothermal field,
Handal USA
et al.
(2007)
Lentz and Existing, Cerro 300
C,44.92 kg/s, Geothermal PTC Steam Brine preheat mode for increasing e e
Almanza Prieto, Mexico average steam double-flash the vapor fraction or brine only
(2006a) quality of 34% plant
Mathur Hypothetical, USA 90e300
C Solar steam e Steam Brine preheat mode for increasing e e
(1979) Rankine cycle the vapor fraction of brine only
with feed water (direct contact)
heater

Mexico. The enthalpy of the geothermal fluids could be increased
by the solar devices. In addition, the steam production rates were
also enhanced because of the addition of the solar units. This
method was limited by silica deposition in the collectors and might
be a more significant issue if the collectors were placed after the
flash tank as the brine had a higher salt concentration. Some
methods were proposed by Lentz and Almanza (2006b) to quench
the solution of silica precipitation in the geothermal fluid. These
include the injection of hydrochloric acid with a pH value of about 5
or the addition of an electronic descaler. The diagram of the system
is shown in Fig. 13c. The main idea is to inject hot steam (heated by
the solar field) with high temperatures into the brine-steam
mixture coming from the geothermal well. This will increase the
temperature of the mixture, reduce the scaling on the pipes in the
wells, and decrease the total salinity. However, later studies tend to
adopt indirect steam generation (ISG) method because mainte-
nance problems of the direct steam generation (DSG) will affect the
stability of the power generation system (Qun et al., 2009).
(2) Indirect Steam Generation (ISG): the geothermal units of this
type usually obtain the heat from the solar collectors using a heat
exchanger indirectly. The energy conversion flow is typically
designed to be: (I) solar to thermal energy; (II) store heat in the heat
transfer fluids (HTF); (III) increasing the geothermal steam fraction
through a heat exchanger (HE); (Ⅳ) finally, power generation:
thermal energy to electricity. A representative schematic of the
hybrid system with indirect steam generation (ISG) is shown in
Fig. 14 (Qun et al., 2009).
Alvarenga et al. (2008) tested a solar-geothermal hybrid system
using oil as the heat transfer fluid (HTF) in the Ahuachapa n
geothermal field, Central America. Two possible positions were
proposed to install the solar heating system: one was between the
cyclonic separator and the flasher system, another option was in
the output line of water at 115
C leaving the flasher tanks
(Fig. 15).The authors found that increasing power output by 2 MWe
would require a solar field of 30 acres to heat the HTF to 225
C.
Heating the brine needs a very large heat exchanger to support the
steam generation.
Mir et al. (2011) and Cardemil et al. (2016) compared the per-
formance of single and double-flash geothermal power plants
assisted by a parabolic trough solar concentrating collector field
(Fig. 16) and evaluated the feasibility to reduce the geothermal fluid
consumption by those hybrid frameworks. The double-flash set-up
takes advantage of the high enthalpy in the first separation process
that allows the geothermal fluid to undergo a second flashing
process, thus supplying additional power with a low-pressure
stream. Solar field was not only used to heat the heat exchangers
in the first flash process, but also in the second one for a low
pressure turbine. This double-flash hybrid framework makes the
most use of the geothermal brine and solar heat, which allows the
reduction on the consumption of the geothermal fluid from the
reservoir when the plant power output stays constant, up to 19% for
the hybrid double-flash. Therefore, the hybrid framework shows

(a) (b) (c)

Fig. 13. Different configurations of the Direct Steam Generation systems (Lentz and Almanza, 2006a and 2006b).
 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481
Fig. 14. A representative schematic of geothermal/solar plant integration(Qun et al., 2009).
Fig. 15. Design of the hybrid solar-geothermal power plant (Alvarenga et al., 2008).
great potential to maintain a stable geothermal power plant system
without needing to consider the flow fluctuation (Cardemil et al.,
2016).
The optimal hybrid configuration depends on the specific loca-
tion of components, the properties of the geothermal fluids, and the
performance of the plant. McTigue et al. (2018) investigated five
configurations (INJ, INJ2, COND, FT1, and PRE) of solar heat addition
in a double-flash geothermal plant, as shown in Fig. 17. INJ mode
heats a fraction of 104
C re-injected water with solar field to
become saturated liquid and mix the production liquid with the re-
heating brine. This configuration shows the poorest performance. If
re-injection brine was heated to a vapor of 50% (referred as to INJ2
mode), the performance was better but the frequent phase changes
(a) Single- flash hybrid power plant
Fig. 16. Schematic of solar and geothermal hybrid power generation system(Cardemil et al., 2016).
15
brought about the increase in mineral deposition. So the INJ
framework needs the heat exchanger which can prevent or
decrease the scale formation. COND framework could prevent the
scaling issues because the water leaving the condenser at 38
C and
0.1 bar come from the steam and can be evaporated by solar field
again without scaling. PRE mode is the most common framework
and similar as those reported by Mir et al. (2011) and Cardemil et al.
(2016). It has the highest solar conversion efficiency (about 25%).
Because of the large flow rates and low heat transfer efficiency of
two-phase flow from the production well, it requires a very big heat
exchanger to meet the heating demand. In addition, the scaling
issues can be delayed by some inhibitors, like H2SO4 (Kawahara
et al., 2012). FT1 mode was recommended by the authors in
which brine was heated by solar field after leaving the first flash
tank at 165
C. This framework had the best performance with the
least risk of scaling.
4.2.2. Solar superheating configuration
Solar energy in solar superheating configuration is mainly used
to heat the working fluid of geothermal power cycles until the
superheat status is reached. Different types of geothermal systems
and different solar units are discussed in this section.
4.2.2.1. With different geothermal systems. Tempesti et al. (2012)
investigated two CHP-ORC systems (Figures 18 and 19) powered
by low-temperature geothermal resources (the temperature was
around 90
C): subcritical single-pressure with heat transfer fluid
(b) Double-flash hybrid power plant
16 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481
Fig. 17. Solar heat can be added at different points in the geothermal power plant. (a)
Schematic of hybrid power plant with solar heat added in five ways: INJ einjection
brine is heated to saturation temperature; INJ2 e same as INJ, except fluid is heated
until the vapor fraction is 50%; COND e The condensed water is heated; PRE e
geothermal production fluids are preheated; FT1 e brine at the first flash tank exit is
heated. Key: SF e solar field; HS e hot storage; CS e cold storage; HX e heat
exchanger; P e production well; I e injection well; FT1 e flash tank 1; FT2 e flash tank
2; T e turbine; CND e condenser; CW e cooling water (McTigue et al., 2018).
and subcritical dual-pressure with direct-steam collectors. In both
configurations, the best performances were obtained with R245fa
in terms of cycle and exergy efficiency compared with R134a and
R236fa. The results indicated that the single-pressure system with
heat transfer fluid had a better performance than the dual-pressure
system with direct-steam collectors. The minor plant complexity is
another aspect that makes the single pressure configuration more
attractive than the dual pressure option. The dual-pressure solution
is more flexible and can be more adaptable to working in off-design
conditions.
A supercritical ORC is renowned for higher conversion efficiency
than subcritical ORC due to a better thermal match (see Fig. 20).
Supercritical ORC can reduce the exergy destruction caused by the
imperfect heat transfer and it is to simply remove the constant
temperature evaporation by working in the supercritical rme. The
layout is similar as the subcritical ORC given in Fig. 20-b (Becquin
and Freund, 2012).
Zhou (2014) investigated both subcritical and supercritical ORC
Fig. 18. Single-pressure geothermal/solar ORC layout (Tempesti et al., 2012) (
Ain: collector outlet, Aout: collector inlet, SH: super-heater, EVA: evaporator, ETC:e-
vacuated solar collectors, geoin:geothermal inlet to the system, geoout:geothermal
reinjection into the well).
cases for the hybrid solar-geothermal power generation systems as
shown in Fig. 21. The thermodynamic analysis indicated that the
hybrid plant using the supercritical ORC produced approximately
4e17% more power than that using the subcritical ORC at a solar
field area over 8000 m2 approximately. Note that the exergy frac-
tion was greater than 66% in this case. However, the supercritical
hybrid plant has a lower first-law thermal efficiency than the
subcritical one at a solar aperture area greater than 16,000 m2. If
the whole power cycle’s operating efficiency is the major concern
for industry, the subcritical hybrid plant becomes the better option;
if the aim is utilizing energy resources, supercritical hybrid one may
be recommended.
Zhou (2014) found that there might exist an optimal value of
solar field area to ensure the outstanding performance. Subcritical
hybrid plants could produce more power than the two stand-alone
plants at a solar field area greater than 16,000 m2. For supercritical
hybrid plant, the value was 12000 m2. The simulation results after
optimization by Zhou (2014) showed that the hybrid plants per-
formed better than the two stand-alone plants, up to a maximum of
19% and 15% respectively. The improvements in power generation
by the hybridization of the two renewable energies are impressive
and significant.
The Kalina cycle (see Fig. 22) is a particular binary cycle that uses
a multicomponent working fluid, as opposed to the single-
component working fluid of traditional binary cycles. Most of the
Kalina cycles use a mixture of ammonia and water as a working
fluid. The Kalina cycle often presents an alternative configuration to
the traditional ORC. In fact, the Kalina Cycle can be described as a
combination between a Rankine binary power cycle and an
ammonia absorption refrigeration cycle.
Boghossian (2011) conducted studies on hybrid Kalina
geothermal plant and solar system (see Fig. 22) and showed that
the thermodynamic thermal efficiency of a hybrid solar-geothermal
plant, defined as the power output divided by total heat input, was
always higher than a stand-alone geothermal plant and less than a
stand-alone solar thermal plant.
Greenhut et al. (2010) proposed two hybrid solar-geothermal
systems: a supercritical binary hybrid plant (Fig. 23) and a flash
hybrid plant (Fig. 24). The results indicated that the low-exergy,
low-cost heat source (geothermal) should be used to the
maximum extent possible within its temperature limit while the
high-exergy, high-cost heat source (solar) should be utilized only to
increase the temperature of the geothermal fluid.
4.2.2.2. With different types of solar systems. Zhou et al. (2011)
proposed two configurations of hybrid solar-geothermal systems:
one was the direct system in which no storage of solar energy exists
(Fig. 25), the other was the indirect system that contains a storage
system (Fig. 26). Both configurations could improve the perfor-
mances of the geothermal power plants, though the indirect
configuration performed better. The overall performance of the
hybrid power plant was directly proportional to the surface area of
the solar collectors. However, the collector surface area had weaker
impacts or even no effects on the performances of the hybrid power
plants when the solar energy was less available or unavailable. This
may be reasonable in this case. The direct configuration increased
the performance of the hybrid power plant by about 12.7% in the
net electrical output and 7.5% in the thermal efficiency at the
greatest. Remarkably, the indirect hybrid plant yielded a 29.0% in-
crease in the net electrical output and a 16.6% increase in the
thermal efficiency in maximum.
Astolfi et al. (2011) reported a supercritical ORC hybrid plant
with a solar parabolic trough field (Fig. 27) to optimize the utili-
zation of an intermediate enthalpy geothermal source. The off-
design calculations were performed by considering an additional
 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481 17

Fig. 19. Dual-pressure geothermal/solar ORC layout (Tempesti et al., 2012) (

PTC: parabolic trough collectors, HPP: high pressure pump, ETC: evacuated solar collectors, geoin: geothermal inlet to the system, geoout: geothermal reinjection into the well, HPT:
high pressure turbine, LPT: low pressure turbine, LPP: low pressure pump).

heat exchanger placed after the main heat exchanger of the base
plant. Although the thermal storage would increase the flexibility
of the hybrid plant, it may be unnecessary because of the contin-
uous availability of the geothermal source, which assured a high
overall capacity factor and could guarantee safe operations for the
turbine in case of lack of insolation for short periods.
4.2.3. Other emerging concepts
A novel Solar Geothermal Hybrid Electric Power Plant (SGHEPP)
based on the hybridization of an existing binary geothermal electric
power plant by adding a solar-powered steam-Rankine topping
cycle was proposed by Bonyadi et al. (2018). In this framework,
solar power is the leading cycle and geothermal power plant is a
bottom cycle which is used for utilizing the exhaust heat from
steam topping cycle. The schematic of the SGHEPP framework is
shown in Fig. 28. This kind of hybridization system does not require
the binary bottoming cycle to be physically modified or operated
outside its design conditions and it has a higher turbine inlet
temperature, which results in higher solar-to-electricity conversion
efficiencies. In addition, the design reduces the consumption of
geothermal resources, which can extend the utilization life of
declining and marginal geothermal fields.
EGS is a hot topic in the area of geothermal power generation in
recent years. Jiang et al. (2017) proposed a hybrid framework of
CO2-based EGS and closed-loop supercritical CO2 Brayton cycles
with solar thermal systems (see Fig. 29). Integrating EGS into solar
power plant may reduce the operation pressure, which is a key
parameter affecting the heat exchanger’s safety and the equipment
cost. At the same time, the solar power plant is simplified by
reducing the capacity of thermal energy storage. The net power
output of the hybrid system is greater than the sum of the two
stand-alone systems when the operating parameters and the
reservoir levels are optimized for the solar system parameters and
the sink temperature. Same as other hybrid systems, the electric
peaking load is supplied by the solar system so the system will draw
less energy out of the geothermal reservoir and extend the

(a) (b)
Fig. 20. (a) Subcritical, single-pressure ORC, (b) Supercritical ORC(Becquin and Freund, 2012).
18 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481
Fig. 21. Schematic of the hybrid solaregeothermal power plant (Zhou, 2014).
Fig. 22. Kalina geothermal-solar hybrid plant configuration with ammonia-water
working fluid. The solar heat transfer fluid loop is omitted for clarity; only an equiv-
alent heater component is included in the diagram (Boghossian, 2011).
Fig. 23. Solar-binary geothermal superheat hybrid system (Greenhut et al., 2010) (
PTC: parabolic trough collectors, HST: high-temperature steam turbine, CST: cool-
temperature steam turbine, HTH: high-temperature solar heat exchanger, LTH: low-
temperature heat exchanger, PW: Geothermal production well, rw: Geothermal rein-
jection well, ACC: air cooled condenser, CP: circulating pump, T: turbine, G: Electrical
generator, HXER: high-exergy exchange recycle, HTFP: solar heat transfer fluid pump).
reservoir life time.
Solar Chimney Power Plant (SCPP) may be one of the alternative
technologies proposed as a device to economically generate elec-
tricity from solar energy in large-scale (Schiel and Schlaich, 2015). It
functions solely with air and does not need any cooling water. In
order to improve its low overall conversion efficiency from solar
energy to electricity, Alrobaei (2005) proposed a new approach in
the southern ron of Libya: Hybrid Geothermal/Solar Chimney Po-
wer Plant (Fig. 30). It was based on thermal conversion, which al-
lows hybrid operation with both low temperature geothermal and
solar heat to continue generating electricity even when sunlight is
not available (Alrobaei, 2005).
4.3. Example projects of hybrid solar-geothermal power plants
As reviewed and analyzed in the above sections, there have been
many publications on the hybrid solar-geothermal power systems.
These studies, however, mainly are modeling and hypothetical
systems. A few real hybrid solar-geothermal power plants are
presented and analyzed in this section.
A solar-geothermal hybrid power plant has been built in the
Ahuachap an geothermal field (Alvarenga et al., 2008). The reservoir
temperature in the main exploitation area was 225
C. For most of
the wells, mixed fluids at well head conditions were 4e7 bar-g,
154e160
C, and 15e20% of mass steam fraction. The parabolic
trough used in the pilot test is shown in Fig. 31. A solar field of
300 m  400 m, running from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., could produce
5.8 kg/s of steam, which is equivalent to 2.5 MWe from a turbine
with an inlet steam pressure of 4.4 bar-g. The heat obtained using
parabolic trough from solar energy was used to increase the steam
flow rate. Alvarenga et al. (2008) found that the solar efficiency
significantly decreases when HTF temperature is higher than
225
C.
Enedy and Rudisill (2009) reported a positive financial return on
investment on a 999.9 kW solar array for partially powering the
pump station at The Geysers geothermal field. PV panels, as shown
in Fig. 32, were used to generate electricity in this project. The in-
clusion of PV panels in a geothermal power plant does not fit in the
mechanism of increasing thermal efficiency by raising the tem-
perature of geothermal fluids with the addition of solar heat.
However it may be able to cope with the peak power demand
during day time, which is helpful to extend the lifespan of
geothermal fields.
In 2012, Enel Green Power developed a commercial scale hybrid
geothermal-solar plant in Nevada and recently expanded it with a
concentrated solar thermal system (Dimarzio et al., 2015). 26 MW
of solar PV power was added to the 33 MW geothermal binary plant
in order to complement the geothermal plant output degradation
during hot summer with high temperatures. CSP systems were also
utilized and added to the geothermal power plants. The concept
behind CSP is simple: rows of parabolic mirrors focus the sun’s rays
onto tubes of demineralized water. Heat from this water is trans-
ferred to incoming geothermal brine, increasing the amount of
energy available to boil the isobutane, resulting in more power to
spin the electricity-producing turbines. The net average production
data of the geothermal and solar power output for a typical spring
day are shown in the Fig. 33. Between the months of March and
December 2015, the CSP component increased the amount of
overall output by 3.6 percent on average. Some of the photos of this
hybrid geothermal-solar power plant in Nevada are shown in
Fig. 34.
5. Characteristics of hybrid solar-geothermal power systems
As mentioned previously, hybrid solar-geothermal systems have
 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481 19

Fig. 24. Solar-geothermal flash hybrid system (Greenhut et al., 2010) (

PTC: parabolic trough collectors, HST: high-temperature steam turbine, CST: cool-temperature steam turbine, CS: cyclonic separator, HTH: high-temperature heat exchanger, LTH:
low-temperature heat exchangers, ST: steam turbine, BT: binary turbine, G: Electrical generator, ACC: air cooled condenser, CP: circulating pump, PW: Geothermal production well,
rw: Geothermal reinjection well, BHX: binary hybrid exergy).

Fig. 25. an ORC power plant with a direct solar heating system (Zhou et al., 2011).

Fig. 26. an ORC power plant with an indirect solar heating system (Zhou et al., 2011).
20 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481

Fig. 27. (a) Schematic of the assumed supercritical regenerative ORC and its representation on the temperatureeentropy plane; (b) Schematic of the hybrid configuration used for
off-design calculations and its representation on the temperatureeentropy plane (Astolfi et al., 2011).

both strength and weakness, which is summarized and discussed in
this section. It is necessary to conduct a detailed technoeconomic
analysis before making the decision whether to use such a hybrid
system.
5.1. Advantages of hybrid solar-geothermal power systems
According to the reports and literature available, we summarize
the advantages of hybrid solar-geothermal power plants. These are
expressed as follows:
C Increasing the temperature or the steam flow rates of rela-
tively low-cost geothermal fluids. For example, solar thermal
can produce temperatures around 650
C leading to higher
turbine inlet temperatures.
C Improving the efficiency of the geothermal power plants
because of the increased temperature.
C Increasing power generation capacity and power output.
C Increasing the utilization of geothermal resources such as
potential and better use of lower temperature geothermal
resources.
C Geothermal fluids can be served as the storage of solar
energy.
C Increasing the capacity factor of geothermal power plants by
increasing the amount of steam generated with the addition
of solar heat.
C Minimizing the effect of intermittency by matching the po-
wer load better than standalone systems. The power load is
usually higher during the day time than night time, which is
exactly the change trend of the power output of hybrid solar-
geothermal power plants. Adding solar thermal plants in-
crease the ability to produce more power during high de-
mand period.
C Improving land use for gathering energy sources above and
below ground. Solar systems need many more areas than
geothermal power plants for the same power output.
C Preventing the deposition of some salts because the salt
solubility increasing with temperatures.
C Reducing the risk of uncertainty in geothermal resources and
reservoir performance decline over time by applying phase
construction and increasing plant operation flexibility.
C Decreasing the operation, maintenance and the overall costs
in a long term under many specific conditions by sharing
technology, balance of plant system, utilities, admin build-
ings, cooling system, and operation persons.
 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481 21

Fig. 28. Schematic of the SGHEPP system (Bonyadi et al., 2018).

Fig. 29. The framework of CO2 based solar thermal-EGS hybrid system (Jiang et al., 2017).
22 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481
Fig. 30. Schematic diagram of a solar chimney power plant and hybrid Geothermal/Solar Chimney power Plant (Alrobaei, 2005).
n Geothermal Field (Alvarenga et al.,
Fig. 31. Parabolic Trough used in the Ahuachapa
2008).
Fig. 32. The PV system with the pump house (in back) for the Southeast Geysers
Effluent Pipeline (Enedy and Rudisill, 2009).
5.2. Drawbacks of hybrid solar-geothermal power systems
Although there are many benefits, the hybrid solar-geothermal
power systems have some disadvantages too. These are summa-
rized and listed as follows:
C The complexity of power generation systems is increased,
which may make maintenance challenging and increase the
operation/maintenance cost.
C The operation of a power plant sometimes requires constant
monitoring of the fluid mass flow rate in the geothermal well
according to the availability of thermal energy coming from
the solar field, which in practice is complex.
C The initial cost is high and it is not cost-competitive in the
short term.
C The cost of the hybrid solar-geothermal systems depends on
many factors. The low operation pressure and low temper-
ature in geothermal fields demands a large solar energy to
produce steam, which impacts the solar field size and thus
the capital investments.
According to the above analysis on the benefits/drawbacks of
the hybrid solar-geothermal systems and the highlighted examples
of solar-geothermal power plants, one can see that it is valuable to
seriously consider hybrid solar-geothermal systems as a competi-
tive renewable energy resource. A hybrid solar-geothermal system
may perform better than stand-alone geothermal or solar power
systems in terms of economic profit and thermal efficiency.
5.3. Critical technical challenges of hybrid solar-geothermal power
systems
The hybrid solar-geothermal power systems have many ad-
vantages based on the above review on the publications. However,
most of the current studies are focusing on conceptual and theo-
retical aspects. There have been few real projects completed for
power generation. This is because the hybrid solar-geothermal
power systems still have some critical technical challenges and
other non-technical issues, which is expressed as follows.
C There are many scenarios and options for hybrid solar and
geothermal power systems. It is difficult to choose the
appropriate scenario despite supporting modeling studies
that consider the increased complexity of the hybrid power
generation systems. Furthermore, the high initial cost is
another barrier for large-scale adoption towards the con-
struction of such hybrid solar and geothermal power
systems.
C One of the main mechanisms to hybrid solar and geothermal
power systems is to significantly increase the temperature of
the geothermal fluids and the capacity factor of the solar
power systems. However, there is a limitation to increase the
temperature of the geothermal fluids. Supercritical CO2-
based system may be a promising option, but it has not been
commercialized at large-scale yet. Other challenges include
the high cost of the material needed for withstanding
extremely high temperatures and the difficulty in main-
taining such high temperature components.
 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481
40
35
30
Power, MW
25
20
15
10
5
0
0 3 6 9
Fig. 33. Geothermal and solar PV output net average production for a typical spring day (Dimarzio et al., 2015).
C Even though the hybrid solar and geothermal power systems
could increase the capacity factor of the solar power systems,
there are still stability and weather-dependent problems in
some cases. For example, the solar component will remain
nonfunctional and does not contribute to the hybrid systems
at all if sunshine is absent for one month under some
extreme conditions. This will be a huge loss to the high
investment.
C The geothermal resource related to EGS is huge. Hybrids of
solar and EGS power systems may be promising in the future.
However, EGS itself has not been utilized and commercial-
ized yet. Again, high costs of initial investment is the main
challenge preventing EGS from commercial application. The
addition of solar systems may reduce the total cost of the
entire hybrid project. Unfortunately, the cost reduction may
not be enough to make the hybrid solar and EGS power
systems economically feasible.
C Solar energy itself is clean and renewable. But some of the
solar power systems, especially CSP and HFC power plants,
have some environmental problems such as the effect on
birds. The hybrid solar and geothermal power systems may
not solve this potential threat to wildlife.
Although hybrid solar-geothermal power systems have many
benefits compared to stand alone solar and geothermal power
plants, there are many critical scientific and technical challenges to
Fig. 34. World’s first commercial CSP-geothermal hybrid plant in Nevada, USA (U.S.Department of Energy, 2016).
23
Geo[MW]
Solar[MW]
12 15 18 21 24 27
Day, hours
be addressed. Currently a few commercial size hybrid solar-
geothermal power plants are running. The practical data and
experience will be very useful to provide insights and solutions to
the technical challenges of hybrid solar-geothermal power systems.
6. Evaluation of hybrid solar-geothermal power systems
It is difficult to compare the efficiencies for different hybrid
solar-geothermal power systems. In order to evaluate and compare
different hybrid solar-geothermal power systems, we summarized
and analyzed stand-alone efficiency, hybrid efficiency, and the
percentage of incremental efficiency from the publications with
these data. The results are listed in Table 4 and plotted in Fig. 35.
Note that the percentage of incremental efficiency, Dh, is defined as
follows:

.
Dh ¼ hhybrid  hStandalone hStandalone ; (1)
where hhybrid and hStandalone are hybrid efficiency and stand-
alone efficiency respectively.
The percentage of incremental efficiency was proposed to
evaluate the hybrid performance and it was calculated by Eq. (1).
The results are listed in Table 4 and are plotted in Fig. 35.
It can be clearly seen from Fig. 35 that the temperature range of
the flash cycle is significantly higher than that of the binary cycle.
24 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481

Table 4
Incremental percentage of efficiency for main hybrid systems.

Authors, year Types of main power cycle Working Hybrid efficiency(%) Stand-alone Percentage of incremental
fluid efficiency(%) efficiency(%)

McTigue et al. Double-flash geothermal plant Steam 17.30 Geo:16.9 2.37

(2018)
Bonyadi et al. Solar-Topping Steam Rankine Cycle R134a 20.50 CSP:13.7 49.64
(2018) Geothermal-Bottom Binary Cycle
Cardemil et al. Single and double-flash geothermal power plants Steam Single flash:35.84e38.88 Single flash:32.41 Single flash:8.03e10.58
(2016) Double flash:43.67e47.36 e35.99 Double flash:7.34-7.77
(exergy efficiency) Double-
Flash:40.52e44.12
Ayub et al. Subcritical geothermal binary plant (ORC) water 5.32-10.63 Geo:5-10 5.5e6.3
(2015)
Ghasemi et al. Subcritical geothermal binary plant (ORC) Isopentane e e 17.90
(2014)
Zhou, 2014 Subcritical geothermal binary plant (ORC) Isopentane Supercritical:10.08 Geo:7.58 Supercritical:32.98
Subcritical:11.59 Subcritical:52.90
Zhou et al. Supercritical/Subcritical geothermal (ORC) Isopentane 27.17 CSP:15 81.13
(2013)
Zhou et al. Subcritical geothermal binary plant (ORC) based on Isopentane 13.00 e 16.00
(2011) Enhanced geothermal system
Astolfi et al. Supercritical geothermal binary R134a 23.00 Geo: 13.6 69.12
(2011)
Boghossian Geothermal Kalina cycle plant NH3eH2O 14.5 CSP: 20e29(400 31.82
(2011) mixture e600
C)
Geo: 11

100
Single- Flash
Percentage of incremental efficiency,%

Double-Flash

Subcritical ORC
80
Supercritical ORC

Subcritical ORC based on EGS

60 Solar-Topping Steam Rankine Cycle
Geothermal-Bottom Binary Cycle
Kalina Cycle

40

20

0
100 120 140 160 180 200 220
Geothermal Fluid Temperature ,oC
Fig. 35. The percentage of incremental efficiency by hybrid framework for different power systems.

The improved percentage, Dh, of the hybrid framework based on
ORC is much greater than that based on flash cycle. More specif-
ically, the hybrid supercritical ORC has the greatest enhancement
from hybrid. It is worth noting that this does not mean that the
overall efficiency of the ORC-based Hybrid power plants will be
higher than that of the flash power plants.
Even though we know that the hybrid solar-geothermal power
systems based on ORC have greater enhanced efficiency percent-
age, Dh, than that based on flash cycles, it is still difficult to choose
the right hybrid system because there are numerous hybrid sce-
narios. Additionally, efficiency enhancement may not be the only
parameter that affects the performance of the total hybrid plants.
Accordingly, we propose a methodology in this paper to rank the
hybrid solar-geothermal plants by considering efficiency
enhancement, LCOE, compatibility, and scaling issue. Using these
data summarized and listed in Tables 2e4, we ranked the hybrid
geothermal and solar plants based on three different geothermal
systems, i.e., ORC, Kalina, and flash cycles. ORC is divided into two
subsystems: subcritical and supercritical cycles. Flash is also
divided into two subsystems: single-flash and double-flash. Thus,
there are five subsystems altogether and we rank them from the
best to the worst with the score of 1e5. The systems with smaller
scores have better integrative performance. The results are listed in
Table 5 and the ranking reveals that supercritical ORC cycle-based
hybrid system is the most potential one, followed by subcritical
ORC, single flash, double-flash and Kalina cycles.
 K. Li et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 250 (2020) 119481
Table 5
Comprehensive rank for five main hybrid solar-geothermal systems.
Hybrid Based Types Dh LCOE
ORC Subcritical 2 4
Supercritical 1 3
Kalina Cycle 3 5
Flash Single-flash 4 2
Double-flash 5 1
7. Discussions and suggestions
In order to achieve hybrid solar and geothermal power plants,
both geothermal resources and solar energy are needed at the same
location. Fortunately there are many places worldwide with high
geothermal heat flux and surface solar radiation present simulta-
neously (see Fig. 12). This feature is the physical basis to hybrid
solar and geothermal power systems.
There are many hybrid scenarios and options of hybrid solar-
geothermal power systems. We have analyzed most of the impor-
tant cases reported in the literature and summarized the efficiency
enhancement, LCOE, compatibility, scaling issue, etc. Despite the
drawbacks of the hybrid solar-geothermal power plants, they are
outweighed by the many benefits.
Because of the difficulty to select the right hybrid system, we
proposed a methodology to rank the hybrid geothermal and solar
plants by considering efficiency enhancement, LCOE, compatibility,
and scaling issues. This will be helpful to evaluate whether a hybrid
solar-geothermal power system should be used at a specific
location.
The main problem is the scarcity of the physical hybrid solar-
geothermal power plants. To the best of our knowledge, there are
only a few real hybrid solar-geothermal power plants. Based on the
available papers and publications, most of the current studies focus
on modeling the hypothetical instead of real hybrid solar-
geothermal power plants. This may be because of the high initial
cost and the great complexity of constructing and building total
hybrid systems.
According to the results listed in Table 5, supercritical ORC cycle-
based hybrid system has the most potential, followed by subcritical
ORC on the basis of systematic evaluations in terms of increase in
efficiency, cost, compatibility, etc. It is therefore suggested that one
may focus on the development of supercritical ORC cycle-based
hybrid and subcritical ORC systems.
There are still many technological challenges to the supercritical
ORC cycle-based hybrid systems. We do not expect that these
challenges will be overcome with ease, although there exist op-
portunities in this space for future development. In this case, we
predict that subcritical ORC hybrid systems may be commercialized
sooner than other types of hybrid solar-geothermal power plants.
Generally speaking, the problems and drawbacks associated
with hybrid solar-geothermal power plants might be addressed
with the further development and progress in both solar and
geothermal industries. Although there are only a few practical
projects, hybrid solar-geothermal power systems are promising in
the near future and represent an exciting opportunity.
8. Conclusions
Many papers and publications of hybrid solar-geothermal power
systems have been analyzed and discussed. Both the benefits and
drawbacks of the hybrid solar and geothermal power systems have
been summarized. According to the critical review and analysis in
this article, the following preliminary remarks may be drawn:
25
Compatibility Scaling Total
3 2 11
4 1 9
5 3 16
1 4 11
2 5 13
(1) It is possible to integrate geothermal and solar energies
worldwide because there are many locations with both high
geothermal heat flux and surface solar radiation.
(2) The problem of low capacity factor for solar energy could be
compensated by the geothermal energy with a high capacity
factor. The quality of both geothermal and solar energies may
be upgraded by optimizing the hybrid configurations and by
heating up the low-temperature geothermal fluids with solar
energy.
(3) Hybrid solar-geothermal systems may perform better than
stand-alone geothermal or solar power systems in terms of
economic profit and thermal efficiency. The improvement
depends on the hybrid configurations.
(4) In the short term, hybrid solar-geothermal systems may be
less cost-competitive than the stand-alone system after the
installation, although it may become more cost-competitive
in a long term because of the accumulative higher power-
output.
(5) A method has been proposed to evaluate and rank the hybrid
solar-geothermal power systems by considering efficiency
enhancement, LCOE, compatibility, and scaling issue.
(6) Supercritical ORC cycle-based hybrid system has the best
integrated system performance, followed by subcritical ORC,
single flash, double-flash and Kalina cycles.
(7) Although the hybrid solar-geothermal power plants have
many advantages, current studies predominantly focus on
conceptual and theoretical aspects without many field pro-
jects completed for power generation. The main reason may
be the high initial cost and the complexity of the total hybrid
systems.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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