COST ANALYSIS/ROI

Solar thermal power has been around for more than a century. The main reasons concentrated solar projects are not abundantly everywhere is the lack of financing, grid capacity for large power projects, and adequate water supply for cooling, long permitting cycle (environmental) due to the large areas required and limited chain of supply. In order to overcome these hurdles, TAS has developed S2P technology with several variants patented.

From a technological and historical point of view, virtually all concentrated solar power plants (trough and tower) in operation or under development are based on a traditional steam Rankine cycle technology to generate power; including a condensing steam turbine cooled by a cooling tower, which requires large amounts of makeup water for the cooling towers. This is often in direct opposition to the most common locations for solar thermal plants in desert areas (with good solar radiation) where there are limited water resources. As an example, California water law currently prohibits use of potable water for cooling.

TAS S2P systems can be simple cost effective low temperature thermal oil systems using less expensive concentrating solar panels coupled to our S2P organic rankine cycle (ORC) system. Our systems also include higher temperature thermal oil systems with a two stage power generation system that integrates two field‐proven technologies into one single power generation block:

a) A “topping” steam cycle using commercially available steam turbines, and

b) an ORC “bottoming” system.

Regardless of the system, TAS S2P units can be strictly air cooled, using smaller turbines requiring shorter lead times, and is less expensive to operate. Our S2P also overcomes the off‐design problem by being able to operate at part load vapor conditions. In fact, a substantial amount of power can be generated with our S2P plant during the daily warm‐up and cool‐down periods associated with solar energy.

The TAS S2P technology innovation is centered on the development of the cycle that best integrates the attributes of two fully developed technologies and mature solutions that will enable the development of a reliable, cost effective power block, with the following attributes, which fully addresses the financing hurdles encountered by solar thermal power developers in the following way:

• Flexible modular system: Enables the development of CSP plants that are cost‐effective at outputs in the 10‐40MW range ($50MM to $200MM) for which project financing is more readably available.
• Sizing: By developing projects in the 10‐40MW range, most transmission constraints are avoided resulting in faster project development and lower costs.
• Zero water consumption: Not requiring water for cooling results in less environmental and permitting constraints, no dependence on water supply for site selection and simpler and less expensive operation & maintenance costs.