## 1 Introduction
### Objectives and Novelty. Benchmarking the First Generation of CSP-sCO\({}_{2}\) Power Plants  
Akin to what was done several years ago to benchmark the then innovative supercritical Carbon Dioxide cycles in Concentrated Solar Power applications, a new reference is now needed to understand whether or not the SCARABEUS technology will eventually yield lower Levelised Cost of Electricity than standard sCO\({}_{2}\) power cycles. This encapsulates the twofold objective of the present work, in brief: (i) to produce accurate estimates of the Levelised Cost of Electricity that is attainable for Concentrated Solar Power plants using supercritical CO\({}_{2}\) cycles; and (ii) to provide a benchmark for the innovative SCARABEUS technology currently under development.  
In this regard, the authors of this paper have carried out an ambitious research to assess the true potential of sCO\({}_{2}\) power cycles, with the aim to provide a structured pathway for the thermo-economic feasibility analysis of this technology when applied to CSP power plants. The results of this research have been published regularly in the last four years, and the present paper represents the last, wrap-up piece of the process. The research starts with a very thorough review of the technical (scientific and industrial) works dealing with sCO\({}_{2}\) technologies [4]. Since the early works by [PERSON], [PERSON] and [PERSON] [5; 6; 7], this work provides a comprehensive classification of virtually all the cycle layouts found in the literature with the aim to facilitate the comparison between different layouts. Amongst all these cycles, the twelve candidates fitting best into CSP applications are shortlisted for a rigorous and systematic thermodynamic analysis in [8], with the goal to assess their true potential, free from the inherent technical constraints brought about by contemporary technology-related limitations. The thermodynamic assessment presented in [8] is complemented by two additional papers by the authors, [9; 10], aimed at assessing the expected component cost of each major equipment in the plant in order to estimate the installation costs of CSP plants using sCO\({}_{2}\) power cycles. Out of this analysis, two of the twelve configurations are found to provide the best thermal and economic performance: Allam and Partial Cooling. For these two layouts, dedicated models of performance to assess the corresponding off-design performance are developed with the aim to calculate the annual production of electricity (annual yield) for a particular location and set of boundary conditions [11].  
With all the information described above, this paper constitutes the last step in this research, leading to the original objective of estimating the Levelised Cost of Electricity f CSP-sCO\({}_{2}\) power plants. As said before, this is the Key Performance Indicator needed to assess whether or not standard sCO\({}_{2}\) cycles or the new SCARABEUS concept will enable meeting the ambitious LCoE objective set forth by the SunShot programme. The value of the present paper lies on two main features. First, the wide portfolio of cycle layouts as produced by the review paper written by the authors in 2017 based on 160 references [4], which ensures that all the candidate cycles are included in the comparison. Second, the fact that the series of papers listed in the previous paragraphs are all consistent in the methodologies used and assumptions made. Indeed, each piece of research is built upon a previous one by the authors and, therefore, the thermodynamic references and environmental conditions are all consistent, the time value of money is taken into account to normalise currency, the on and off-design models of performance used to calculate the yield of each cycle are the same, and there is no bias in the comparative analysis of results. This applies to the entire process, from literature review to LCoE calculation.