## 5 Results and Discussion  
### Technical Performance  
#### 5.1.1 Performance of Scenarios I and III  
The application of the methodology in Scenarios I and III, without utilizing excess electricity, demonstrates that particles can generate 7.4% more annual electricity compared to molten salts. This improvement in mainly due to the ability to operate at higher temperatures than those allowed by molten salt constraints, enabling the use of a supercritical Rankine cycle with enhanced thermal efficiency. The results are consistent with those reported in [13]. Figure 6 exemplifies the electricity production for Scenario I over a four-day period, using dates corresponding to the solstices and equinoxes in the Northern Hemisphere as reference points. In the figure, the left vertical axis displays both the irradiance power and the power block output, while the right vertical axis shows the variation in storage levels. The dashed horizontal lines indicate the previously described upper and lower storage capacity limits. For a comprehensive comparison with other cases, Figure 7 illustrates the variation in electricity generation using Scenario I as the baseline. Figure 6: Energy production for 4 reference days for Scenario I. There are additional areas where plant efficiency could be improved. For instance, in both scenarios, the heliostat field size was kept constant. However, by reducing the field size in Scenario III--given that the plant is more efficient and produces more electricity--field efficiency could be increased by up to an additional 2% [13]. Considering the overall plant performance in terms of sun-to-electricity efficiency (\(\eta\)) and capacity factor (CF), Scenario I achieves values of 15.5% and 56.9%, respectively--figures that align well with those reported in the literature for similar CSP systems [7]. Scenario III, in contrast, exhibits improvements of 1 and 4 percentage points in efficiency and CF, respectively, attributable to a more effective utilization of the available energy. A summary of these performance indicators is provided in Table 11, which also includes a comparative analysis of Scenarios II and IV. The energy density of thermal storage was calculated using the maximum storage capacity for each scenario and the material properties provided in Tables 3 and 5. The calculation follows Equation (9):  
\[E_{sto_{i}}=m_{i}\cdot C_{\text{P}_{i}}\cdot\Delta T_{i} \tag{9}\]  
where Esto represents the energy stored in each scenario; C\({}_{\text{P}}\), is the specific heat capacity of the material; and \(\Delta\)T is the temperature difference occurring in each scenario. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Year**} & **Scenario I (\%)** & **Scenario II (\%)** & **Scenario III (\%)** & **Scenario IV (\%)** \\ \cline{2-5}  & \(\eta\)**/CF** & \(\eta\)**/CF** & \(\eta\)**/CF** & \(\eta\)**/CF** \\ \hline
2016 & 15.5/56.9 & 16.6/60.7 & 16.7/61.1 & 17.6/64.6 \\
2017 & 15.5/56.9 & 16.7/61.1 & 16.7/61.1 & 17.9/65.5 \\
2018 & 15.5/56.9 & 16.1/58.8 & 16.7/61.1 & 17.2/63.0 \\
2019 & 15.5/56.9 & 16.5/60.3 & 16.7/61.1 & 17.6/64.3 \\
2020 & 15.5/56.9 & 17.1/62.6 & 16.7/61.1 & 18.1/66.1 \\
2021 & 15.5/56.9 & 18.0/65.8 & 16.7/61.1 & 19.0/69.7 \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 11: Sun-to-electricity efficiency and CF for each scenario. Figure 7: Electrical production for each scenario and electrical surpluses stored by the plants. Applying (9) yields results of 115 Wh/kg for Scenario I and 160 Wh/kg for Scenario III. These values are within the range reported in the literature for thermal batteries; however, they fall short of the maximum energy densities for this type of storage, which are set at 250 Wh/kg [70]. To compare thermal efficiency between the two scenarios, the average annual state of charge (SOC) was determined using (10). This calculation provides an indirect measure of the time the salts spend in the cold tank, which keeps electric resistances active to prevent salt solidification throughout the year.