A Levelized Cost Metric for EDS-Based Cleaning of Mirrors in CSP Power Plants

Integration of electro-dynamic screens (EDS) on mirrors in CSP power plants is an emergent and environmentally conservative technology. It can remove the deposited dust from these mirrors and thus maintain high reflectivity continuously through the plant life. We propose a levelized cost of mirror cleaning (LCOMC) metric to link the EDS-enhanced reflectivity gains with the relevant product and installation costs, as well as with the direct and indirect costs associated with plant operation and maintenance. The LCOMC metric accounts for the fact that enhanced reflectivity owing to EDS technology allows the plant operators to specify a suitably smaller optical capacity plant in order to deliver a fixed power production target. We illustrate our proposal with a dataset on deluge cleaning of a scaled solar power plant configuration. For the configuration studied, it is shown that, if the EDS technology production and installation cost is $10/m², then its LCOMC is 7.9% below the LCOMC for a comparable deluge cleaning alternative. Thus, the proposed LCOMC metric provides a methodology for systemic assessment of the economic impact of the EDS technology (and other mirror cleaning technologies), early in its technology development cycle.