c. The most competitive terrestrial solar thermal-electric power plant is a central receiver configuration as reported by JPL. Figure XIA-1 its a summary of this analysis and it can be seen energy cost of the central receiver designs are generally less than that of the distributed receivers. The least cost configuration analyzed is the central receiver system with a six-hour storage capability and a wet-type heat rejection. The selection of the wet-type heat rejection is the most cost effective, assuming a sufficiency of water for evaporative cooling. It is realized that this may not be the case in some otherwise logical locations for central receivers. The low of 92 mills/KWe HR is over 11 percent less than the best distributed collector system studied. The design of the central receiver power plant determined most cost effective is shown in Figure XIA-2. This is a 100 MWe plant with a storage capacity of 70 MWe for 6 hours and a load factor of 0.54. The land area required for this size and type of plant is about 1.13 sq. miles or 2.94 km . Nearly 0.9 KM2 or 30 percent represents collector area. The caloria-rock thermal storage system is optimally sized for 6 hours to help smooth the energy input to the generator, therefore allowing a uniform output during the generating period. The 92 mills/KWe HR energy cost associated with the selected 100 MWe central receiver plant is based on the total capital and annual operating costs in 1975 dollars averaged over an effective 30 year plant lifetime using 10.5 percent interest rates and a 6 percent long-term inflation factor. Details of this economic methodology are described in Ref. 3. a. Capital costs include the direct costs of the heliostats, receiver, tower, piping, energy conversion equipment, land costs and improvements. These are summed to provide a total construction cost. Since the heliostat represents the biggest single cost, using a "high-side" of $91.4/m2 results in $807/KWe or nearly 44 percent of the total "on-line" capital outlay of $1843/KWe ($184.3 million total construction cost of the 100 MWe plant with a 6 hour @ 70 MWe storage system). Based on the averaging techniques mentioned above, this represents a 43.3 mil 1s/KWH energy cost for capital investment. b. The variable costs associated with this plant are primarily 0&M and are taken into account only after the system is in full operation. These costs include salaries, preventative and corrective maintenance, associated materials, insurance, profits and taxes.' For the candidate plant, these costs total 49.1 mills/KWH or 53 percent of the total annualized life-cycle energy cost. Advantages and Disadvantages Most of the advantages and disadvantages of the terrestrial based solarthermal-electrical generating plant are obvious, therefore, for sake of brevity, some of the major subjects are listed as follows.
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