Modeling the Guaranteed Performance of CSP Plants

Abstract

Performance models are an essential tool for the development, design optimization, and estimation of the expected performance or yield of concentrating solar power (“CSP”) plants. It has also become common practice to use performance models to calculate the guaranteed performance of CSP plants for evaluating whether a newly constructed CSP plant has met its performance obligations. Although this would seem to be an obvious approach, actual experience has shown that insufficient thought has gone into how this should be done, and the performance models used have generally not been up to the task. We discuss some of the issues in relation to defining the guaranteed performance of a CSP plant, using a performance model to determine the guaranteed performance, and issues related to assessing whether the plant has met its guaranteed performance. We provide recommendations for how future projects should address these issues.