# Economic Analysis of a Zero-Water Solar Power Plant for Energy Security
## 3 Results and Discussion
### Economic Analysis of the Overall CSP Plant

Table 3: Total costs of the Earth-CAT system. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline
**Component** & **Tota** & **(\%) of Investment** \\ \hline Direct costs (DC) & & \\ Solar field and HTF system & 70,329,114 & 25.61 \\ Mirrors & 6,181,730 & 8.79 \\ Receiver & 30,000,000 & 42.66 \\ Tower & 10,000,000 & 14.22 \\ Steel construction & 10,335,080 & 14.70 \\ Pylons & 1,062,485 & 1.51 \\ Foundations & 2,028,380 & 2.88 \\ Trackers & 386,358 & 0.55 \\ Swivel joints & 676,127 & 0.96 \\ HTF system (piping, installations, heat exchangers, pumps) & 5,215,835 & 7.42 \\ Heat transfer fluid & 2,028,380 & 2.88 \\ Electronics, controls, electrical, and solar equipment & 2,414,738 & 3.43 \\ Thermal storage system & 15,286,964 & 5.57 \\ Salt & 7,425,097 & 48.57 \\ Storage tanks & 2,620,622 & 17.14 \\ Insulation material & 291,180 & 1.90 \\ Foundations & 873,541 & 5.71 \\ Heat exchangers & 2,038,262 & 13.33 \\ Pumps & 582,361 & 3.81 \\ Balance of system & 1,455,901 & 9.52 \\ Conventional plant components and power system & 13,812,303 & 5.03 \\ Power block & 5,505,603 & 39.86 \\ Balance of plant & 5,505,603 & 39.86 \\ Grid connection & 2,801,096 & 20.28 \\ Cooling system & 102,707,181 & 37.41 \\ Earth-CATs dry cooling system: material and equipment & 102,707,181 & 100 \\ Labor & 62,192,010 & 22.65 \\ Solar field & 2,994,276 & 4.81 \\ Site preparation and infrastructure & 5,602,193 & 9.01 \\ Steel construction & 2,414,738 & 3.88 \\ Piping & 1,738,612 & 2.80 \\ Electric installations and others & 3,863,581 & 6.21 \\ Earth-CATs dry cooling system: labor & 45,578,610 & 73.29 \\ Indirect costs (IC) & & \\ Total IC & 10,238,490 & 3.73 \\ Project development & 2,801,096 & 27.36 \\ Project management & 7,437,394 & 72.64 \\ Other costs (allowances) & & \\ FCI & 274,566,062 & - \\ FCI without Earth-CATs & 126,280,271 & - \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 4: Fixed capital investment of the plant. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline  & **Earth-CATs** & **Conventional** & **Conventional** \\  & & **Dry-Cooling** & **Water-Cooling** \\ \hline Total installed costs & & & \\ (EUR/kW) & & 6314 & 6414 \\ FCI (MEUR) & 274.57 & 126.28 & 126.28 \\ Land costs (MEUR) & 9.75 & 9.75 & 9.75 \\ O\&M costs (MEUR) & 1.20 & 1.13 & 1.70 \\ TCI (MEUR) & 321.28 & 154.17 & 154.23 \\ Levelized TRR (MEUR) & 40.48 & 20.11 & 20.83 \\ LCOE (EUR/MWh) & 505.97 & 269.71 & 260.42 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 5: Results of the economic analysis of the CSP plant with Earth-CAT system with conventional air-based and water-based systems. As presented in the table above, the influence of the costs of the Earth-CATs on the total costs of the plant is significant. When compared to conventional dry-cooling systems, both the TRR and LCOE are approximately 50% higher. It is thus clear that the design proposal assumes a significant increase in the costs when compared to a plant with a conventional dry-cooling system. The cost of the Earth-CATs must reduce significantly or the additional power generation of the plant due to the higher operational efficiency must be significantly higher. For the LCOE between both dry-cooling plants to become equal, the initial investment of the Earth-CATs must decrease by almost MEUR 140 (Figure 3). The competitiveness of the technology could thus only be supported by additional benefits from a higher efficiency of the Rankine cycle. When compared to wet-cooling systems, the TRR and LCOE are 48.5% higher. As described in Section 2.3, the NPV and PBP are used to evaluate the costs of the Earth-CATs and compared them to water-cooling systems assuming water-cost saving as revenues. A water cost of EUR 1/m\({}^{3}\) and annual savings due to zero-water withdrawal and consumption of 6.3 m\({}^{3}\)/MWh are considered [2]. This generates for the studied plant annual operating savings of EUR 536,000. The NPV of the Earth-CAT design with a 25-year lifetime and a discount rate of 2% is found to be MEUR \(-\)139.59.