Dish Stirling technology: A 100 MW solar power plant using hydrogen for Algeria

In Algeria, the electricity demand is rapidly increasing. At the same time, Algeria is very rich in solar energy resources and possesses large wasteland areas in the Sahara that represent 80% of the total area and the market of solar energy is very promising. All these indicators make Algeria an ideal country for the implementation of the Concentrating Solar Thermal Power Plant technologies (CSTPP). In order to study whether the implementation of CSTPP under Algerian climate is economically feasible, we present in this article a techno economic assessment of 100 MW of CSTPP based on Dish Stirling technology using hydrogen as working fluid for centralized electricity production located in three typical sites of each geographical regions of Algeria (Algiers, In Salah and Tamanrasset). The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s SAM software (Solar Advisor Model) is used to evaluate the monthly energy production, annual energy output and the Levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for this study. The results indicate that Tamanrasset is the suitable site yielding the lower LCOE (11.5 c$/kWh) and the higher annual net electric energy output (221 GWh/y).