Accepted Manuscript

Life cycle analysis of external costs of a parabolic trough Concentrated Solar

Power plant

Norah Mahlangu, George Alex Thopil

PII: S0959-6526(18)31533-6

DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.05.187

Reference: JCLP 13044

To appear in: Journal of Cleaner Production

Received Date: 02 January 2018

Accepted Date: 22 May 2018

Please cite this article as: Norah Mahlangu, George Alex Thopil, Life cycle analysis of external
costs of a parabolic trough Concentrated Solar Power plant, Journal of Cleaner Production (2018),
doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.05.187

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

Life cycle analysis of external costs of a parabolic trough Concentrated Solar

Power plant

Norah Mahlangu, George Alex Thopil

Department of Engineering and Technology Management, University of Pretoria

Abstract
A number of developing countries have undertaken measures to diversify into renewable
electricity generation. Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is one of the technologies, though
despite the high capital costs have numerous technological capabilities. CSP however is a
new technology in many developing countries, where the external costs have not been fully
understood. Thus far, South Africa has not conducted any detailed externalities assessments
for renewable electricity sources. The presented research aims to evaluate the external cost
associated with a solar CSP plant using life cycle analysis. The analysis uses a parabolic
trough CSP plant with 100MW capacity located in the Northern Cape region in South Africa.

The analysis evaluated external impacts and costs for climate change, human health, loss of
biodiversity, local effects on crops, and damage to materials. The study found that climate
change accounted for an estimated 32.2 g CO2 eq/kWh of electricity generated. A number of
non-greenhouse gas impacts were also analysed of which the effect on human health was
the most significant category (0.214g/kWh). The damage cost quantified in the study for the
solar CSP plant was in the range of 2.10-3.31 ZA c/kWh (1.4-2.2 €/MWh) with a central
estimate of 2.83 ZA c/kWh (1.9 €/MWh). The results suggested that climate change and
human health had a combined contribution of 91% to the central estimate of the external
costs which was mostly attributed by the manufacturing life cycle phase. The analysis
showed that manufacturing activities have a major contribution across all impact categories.
A major policy understanding is that the overall damage costs can be reduced if
manufacturing the main components can be localised, to reduce the emissions caused by
the transport systems. This could bring added benefits for local communities and industries.

Keywords: Life Cycle Analysis, Concentrated Solar Power, Greenhouse gas, Human health,
Damage cost

List of notations and abbreviations

cstudy Thermal capacity of power plant within study
cref Thermal capacity of reference power plant
mstudy(solar field or HTF) Mass of the solar field or HTF components of the power plant within
study
mref(solar field or HTF) Mass of the solar field or HTF components of reference power plant
mstudy(Power Plant) Mass of power plant components within study
mref(Power Plant) Mass of power plant components of reference power plant
mstudy(TES) Mass of the thermal storage components of power plant within study
mref(TES) Mass of the thermal storage components of reference power plant
CSP Concentrated Solar Power
HTF Heat Transfer Fluid
IRP Integrated Resource Plan
LCA Life Cycle Assessment
LCC Life Cycle Costing
NMVOC Non-Methane Volatile Organic Compounds
PPM Primary Particulate Matter
REIPPP Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement
Programme
TES Thermal Energy Storage
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1. Introduction

The electricity generation sector has seen a rapid growth in renewable energy injection due
to the need to reduce carbon emission into the atmosphere. In the past coal was considered
the cheapest energy source for electricity production; which delayed the adoption of
renewable energy technologies (Huenteler et al., 2016). Electricity generation using coal
provides baseload electricity compared to the intermittency of renewable energy such as
solar and wind (Vezmar et al., 2014).

There are predominantly two ways in which electricity can be generated using solar energy
(Tsoutsos et al., 2005), (Desai and Bandyopadhyay, 2015), either by using the photovoltaic
system which uses direct sunlight; directly to the solar panels to generate electricity or by
using the CSP which uses mirrors to concentrate the sun rays to heat steam or gas that turns
a turbine to produce electricity. Solar CSP technology which is the main focus of this
research consists of four technologies, namely parabolic trough (uses parabolic troughs
mirrors to concentrate the sun rays to the fluid which in turn heats the steam to drive the
turbine to generate electricity) ,linear fresnel reflector (consist of a long and thin segment of
mirrors that focus the run rays to the fixed absorber where the heat is transferred to the heat
exchanger to run the steam generator to produce electricity), solar towers (uses heliostats to
focus the sun rays onto a central receiver to heat the fluid to produce steam to generate
electricity) and the parabolic dish (uses a mirror shaped in the form of a dish to concentrate
the sun rays onto a central receiver where the thermal energy is used to produce energy)
(Khan and Arsalan, 2016). Parabolic trough technology however is the more developed and
widespread compared to the other technologies (Khan and Arsalan, 2016). Parabolic trough
technology has the ability to store energy using molten salt which is an added benefit
compared to wind and solar PV thus providing lesser intermittency (Viebahn et al., 2008),
(Kuravi et al., 2013).

A major advantage of solar CSP is its flexibility when it comes to configurations (San Miguel
and Corona, 2014). Studies have been performed internationally for the hybridisation of solar
CSP plants to produce electricity by limiting the fossil fuel reliance. The system can be paired
with other cleaner energy sources to form a hybrid system such as natural gas, biomass, etc.
The main objective of hybridisation is to integrate the solar CSP plant’s Rankine cycle with
another plant which can as a result reduce the cost of the CSP plant by 50% by eliminating
the need for the storage system (Peterseim et al., 2014). It was also found in the study by
Peterseim et al. (2014) that the ranking cycle components of the solar CSP paired well with
natural gas and biomass, where biomass can be considered the cleaner energy of the two
sources. Natural gas external costs were found to be 8.6 times higher than solar only
operated plants in the Corona et al. (2016) study and also found to have 4-9 times more life
cycle greenhouse gas emissions in the study by Klein and Rubin (2013). Hence there is a
need to look into cleaner alternatives to pair with solar CSP plants. Although there are
several plants around the world which takes into account hybridisation, the likelihood of
South Africa adopting hybridisation is minimal because of the lack of natural gas supply
infrastructure.

91.5% of the electricity production in South Africa is from coal with the country’s coal
dependence making it a major emitter of greenhouse gases (IEA, 2017). South Africa has
invested in two biggest coal fired power station (Medupi and Kusile power stations) to meet
the current electricity demand and again more coal is planned to introduced prior to 2030
(DoE, 2013). Electricity generation in South Africa using coal or fossil fuels have been closely
linked to emitting harmful pollutants and greenhouse gases (GHG) in the form of
environmental costs (Thopil, 2013), including occupational costs (Thopil and Pouris, 2011)
and public costs (Thopil and Pouris, 2015). Earlier studies looked at accounting positive
benefits of electrification (Spalding-Fecher and Matibe, 2003) as well as impacts at
household level (Van Horen, 1996a) and (Van Horen, 1996b). The effects of harmful – both
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GHG and non GHG - emissions, are called externalities when these effects are not
incorporated to the total cost of the product life (Corona et al., 2016), or even at national level
(Georgakellos, 2012) and hence these can cause health risks when inhaled as pollutants
(Zvingilaite, 2011) or affect the economy (Chen et al., 2015). South African investigations
encouraged future externality studies to be expanded to include renewable sources (Thopil
and Pouris, 2015).

Currently there are no studies that have attempted to evaluate externalities for renewable
electricity sources, in South Africa. This research therefore aims to determine externalities
associated with parabolic trough CSP in South Africa by the means of life cycle analysis, to
identify the main impacts and phases during the life cycle that contribute to the externalities
and then quantify the monetary impact (external costs) associated with the externalities. Life
cycle analysis has proven popular to identify the total costs (both internal and external) of a
process such in municipal wastewater (Theregowda et al., 2016), transport sub-system (Sen
et al., 2017) or building system (Chiang et al., 2015). Externality investigations on renewable
sources in South Africa is fairly unchartered grounds (Rudman et al., 2016). The
investigation aims to contribute by developing a methodology to estimate local CSP power
plant inventory data from international data, when local data is not available or accessible.
This can be particularly useful for developing countries where technologies (or parts) are
imported and local developers maybe unwilling to share data.

2. Background
South Africa has introduced market incentives to promote renewable energy technologies,
for example the introduction and the success of the Renewable Energy Independent Power
Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) which drives the future injection of renewable
energy and bringing South Africa closer to its 2030 target with reference to the national
electricity plan (DoE, 2013). South Africa’s REIPPPP programme provides a framework to
encourage private sector investment in renewable energy for the country. The programme
has landed South Africa in the top list of the Fieldstone Africa Renewables Index (Fieldstone
Africa, 2017) for delivering results on a large scale. South Africa has proposed the
introduction of a carbon tax, which is aimed at encouraging companies to reduce their
greenhouse emissions by coming up with new and innovative ways to generate electricity
(DoE, 2013). This makes the move to diversify electricity production by adding renewable
energy sources not only a national goal but also aligning with the global initiative.

Among the many renewable sources that South Africa plans to introduce into the system;
solar CSP will also form part of the future energy mix (DoE, 2013). According to (Rudman et
al., 2016) South Africa currently has six CSP plants allocated, and totalling 600MW which is
roughly 12% of total renewable allocation. Within the 600 MW, 450 MW is allocated to
parabolic trough CSPs, with the rest being central tower CSP based. Hence this research
study focuses on CSP parabolic trough system. The objective of this research is to evaluate
externalities, to identify the main impacts and phases during the life cycle that contribute to
the externalities and to measure the monetary impact for the externalities.
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Figure 1: KaXu Solar One schematic

Source:(KaXu Solar One (Pty) Ltd, 2012)

The lifecycle assessment analysis in this study is based on the solar CSP plant called KaXu
Solar One. KaXu Solar One is the first CSP power plant to be built in South Africa, and
started commercial operation in February 2015. KaXu Solar is a parabolic trough CSP plant
located in the Northern Cape region of South Africa. The power plant has an installed
capacity of 100 MW, with a rated capacity factor of 36.5% (translating to roughly
320GWh/year of produced electricity). The CSP plant occupies 1100 ha of land, has a life
expectancy of 20 years and benefits from a direct normal irradiation (DNI) of 2900 kWh/m2
(Rudman et al., 2016) with a solar field aperture area of 800000 m² using 1200 solar collector
assemblies which uses thermal oil as heat transfer fluid (HTF). The installation incorporates
2.5 hour thermal energy storage (TES) system based on two-tank indirect molten salt
technology. The plant was developed by Abengoa which is based in Spain. Figure 1 shows a
schematic diagram of the KaXu Solar CSP plant (KaXu Solar One (Pty) Ltd, 2012),(National
Renewable energy laboratory, 2016). South Africa has minimal experience in solar CSP with
most of the skills provided by the US and Spain (Rudman et al., 2016). This has led to the
significant portions of the infrastructure required to build the CSP plant being imported from
other countries.

It becomes essential to estimate the cost of externalities in electricity generation to provide

the real cost of electricity production in order to make an informed argument about which
electricity sources are cost competitive, and also to minimise the externalities. Studies have
shown that when the monetary cost of the externalities produced during electricity generation
using coal or conventional fossil sources is included in the normal costs, the cost of electricity
can be considered high (Thopil and Pouris, 2011, Thopil and Pouris, 2015, Rentizelas and
Georgakellos, 2014, Thopil and Pouris, 2010, Meyerhoff et al., 2010). Determining total
external costs aid in creating an understanding of how overall processes can be made more
efficient and also help in comparison of external cost with other technologies. This will enable
both technical and policy decision making both on an engineering level as well as policy
makers in decisions relating to energy and electricity related planning.
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2.1 International Solar CSP Externality studies

Corona et al. (2016) evaluated the full environmental life cycle cost analysis of concentrating
solar power technology; which included manufacturing, construction, operation and
maintenance, dismantling and disposal. The analysis was based on a case study for a
50MW plant situated in the southern Spain. The plant operated in hybrid mode, solar and
natural gas, with the natural gas input ranging from 0% to 30%. The analysis divided the
external cost into six categories namely human health, loss of biodiversity, local and global
damage to crops, damage to materials and climate change. The study used the life cycle
analysis (LCA) methodology to determine the impacts of the CSP plants and the life cycle
costing (LCC) approach to determine the damage cost of the impacts. The damage cost for
the project was calculated using the CASES (CASES, 2008) project for the LCA. Cost
assessment of sustainable energy systems (CASES) projects is an extension of the Extern E
projects; the research evaluates the LCA of case studies with the aim of determining the cost
of the externalities. The study found that the external unit costs of CSP with 30% natural
gas were up to 8.6 times higher than in solar-only operation, primarily due to increased
greenhouse gas emissions and solar-only operation remains the best option (Corona et al.,
2016). The research study found that the highest contributor to the total impacts was from
the climate change sub category with 27.6 kg CO2 eq/MWh for environmental impacts and a
total damage cost in the range of 0.906 and 1.18€/MWh (realistic and ambitious scenario
respectively).

The research conducted by Turney and Fthenakis (2011) took into account the installation
and operation phases of a CSP. Turney and Fthenakis (2011) argue that most published
scientific research on environmental impacts from solar power use a LCA framework, and
typically the interest of the investigations are on greenhouse gas emissions and the energy
payback time. The study also notes that most research does not investigate hazardous
materials emissions, land use intensity, water usage, wildlife impacts, and albedo effects (the
reflection of the sun back to space). Thus the study evaluated the land use intensity, human
health and wellbeing, plant and animal life, geo-hydrological resources, as well as climate
change. It was noted that solar energy requires a reasonable amount of land and that the
land cannot be used for anything else other than for electricity production, as opposed to
wind energy where the land can also be used for farming purposes. It was also noted that
there is carbon dioxide emission (up to 36 g CO2 eq/kWh emissions) during the removal of
forests to make way for the solar plant (and minimal emission at a desert region) compared
to 1100 g CO2 eq/kWh for coal base electricity. There were more benefits to a solar power
plant located at the desert than one located at forest region due to minimal to no wildlife
present in the desert with more exposure to the sun (total emissions 16 and 86 g CO2
eq/kWh due to clearing of vegetation).

In CSP plants the emissions that occur from using fossil fuel energy for the operational
phase, are due to the natural gas use and electricity consumption (Lechon et al., 2008). The
energy required to build and to decommission a CSP power plant was 0.17MJ/kWh for the
central tower technology and 0.19MJ/kWh for the parabolic trough technology (Lechon et al.,
2008), implying that more energy is required to decommission the parabolic trough systems.

In the Klein and Rubin (2013) study, the authors explored the greenhouse gas emissions,
water and land use for CSP that uses molten salt for the thermal energy storage (TES). TES
is used to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels as a backup and as a result this reduces the
amount of greenhouse gas emissions. The study considered a 110 MW gross capacity
parabolic trough plant operating with two different cooling technologies, three different
energy backup system options, and 12 different backup system capacities. The study also
used the LCA methodology to conduct the study, where it compared the effects of the
different backup storage; natural gas-fired, heat transfer fluid heater, and minimal backup
and found that natural gas operations emit more greenhouse gases compared to TES, and
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also that the TES system had twice as more greenhouse gas emissions compared to the
minimum backup system.

The study also aimed to estimate the difference between the different cooling systems; dry
and wet cooled to determine the systems water consumption and emissions. It thus
commended dry cooling technology for its reduction in water consumption by 71 to 78%
compared to using the wet cooling system. They also found that the backup capacity that the
CSP plant employs is directly proportional to the water consumption. The amount of land
required for each megawatt (land/MWh) for a CSP plant was found to increase with
increasing TES capacity and decreased with increasing natural gas backup system capacity.
The authors recommended that future studies should examine policy options to motivate the
use of dry cooling in new CSP parabolic trough plants due dry cooling having the ability to
minimise onsite operational water use by up to 93% in desert areas without significantly
increasing lifecycle GHG emissions or land use.

Burkhardt et al. (2012) aimed to reduce the variability of impacts and to have an estimate on
the greenhouse gas emissions for tower and trough CSP generation lifecycle, by using a
process called harmonization where 125 papers from different countries and different case
studies over different periods where reviewed to gather the findings. They found that the
range of lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions was 26g CO2 eq/kWh for a parabolic trough and
38g CO2 eq/kWh for tower.

In another investigation by (Burkhardt III et al., 2011) where analysis was based on a case
study, it was noted that there were challenges with water shortages in the power sector, so
they performed a study on different cooling systems of the solar CSP which aims to show the
differences between the two system in the form of saving water (wet and dry cooled system).
The study used the life cycle model to analyse a 103MW wet and dry cooled solar CSP and
also determined the greenhouse gases for the systems. The study used the EIO-LCA model
to estimate the emissions embodied by the plant components such as pumps, compressors,
turbine generator set, and miscellaneous controls and electronic equipment. The study found
the greenhouse gases for the wet cooled system to sum up to 26 g of CO2 eq/kW, and
consumed 4.7 l/kWh and has an energy demand of 0.40 MJ eq/kWh. The dry cooled system
was estimated to reduce water consumption by 77% but increase greenhouse emissions by
8%.

Overall, it can observed from literature that the use of the LCA model is quite prominent to
evaluate the impacts for solar CSP including parabolic trough technology. The results
stipulated in Table 1 show the climate change emissions from different studies. Although the
results are from different authors in different locations, the difference in the results is minimal
with a range from 14-33.4 g CO2 eq/kWh in the climate change sub-category for the
parabolic trough technology.
Table 1: Comparison of climate change impacts of CSP technologies
Study g CO2 Study Location System layout Summary of the study Methodology
eq/kWh
Corona et al. 27.6 Spain Wet cooled 50MW parabolic The study estimates the life cycle Life cycle
(2016) trough CSP life cycle cost of a 50MW parabolic trough assessment
expectancy 25 years, two CSP plant operating in hybrid
tank molten salt and also mode in Spain with different
uses synthetic oil as the HTF natural gas inputs from zero to
thirty percent, with solar
irradiation of 2200kWh/m2yr
Burkhardt III 28 United states The dry cooled system is a The study evaluates the Life cycle
et al. (2011) 103MW parabolic trough CSP greenhouse gas emissions of a assessment
with life expectancy of 30 parabolic solar CSP plant in the
years. Two tank molten salt United States, using the life cycle
storage and uses thermal oil assessment methodology, with
as the HTF solar irradiation of 2700kWh/m2yr
Viebahn et al. 33 Spain and Algeria 46 MW parabolic trough CSP The study forms part of the LCA (Impact
(2008) plant with HTF thermal oil and NEEDS project. It models a Pathway)
molten salt storage different Solar CSP systems
(parabolic trough, central
receiver, etc) to estimate the
impacts and the external cost of
each for various impacts
(GHG,NOx,SOx etc.), with solar
irradiation between 2000 and
2500kWh/m2yr
Desideri et al. 29.9 Italy 2MW solar CSP parabolic Performed a comparative Life cycle
(2013) trough plant with no storage analysis using the lifecycle assessment
system. assessment analysis for solar
CSP and Photovoltaic
technologies in Italy, with solar
irradiation between 1600-1800
kWh/m2yr
Burkhardt et 26 United states A qualitative research study to Review of life cycle literature for Harmonization
al. (2012) establish a single acceptable Solar CSP from 12 reviewed Method
 value references, 10 produced
references and 36 independent
GHG emissions estimates; where
19 was for parabolic trough and
17 for power tower technology.
Arvizu et al. 14 -32 Multiple countries A qualitative research study to An extensive study on renewable Harmonization
(2011) establish a single acceptable energy sources and climate Method
value change mitigation using various
literature studies.
Viebahn et al. 33.4 Spain and Algeria 50MW CSP parabolic trough Studies the potential role of solar Life cycle
(2011) which uses thermal oil as the CSP in Africa and Europe, by assessment
HTF and molten salt for the modeling case A in Spain and
storage system case B in Algeria with solar
irradiation between 2000 for case
A and for case B 2500kWh/m2yr
Current Study 32.2 South Africa 100 MW CSP parabolic An LCA study to quantify the Life cycle
trough and two tank molten external costs associated with assessment
salt storage using thermal oil the life cycle of the plant with
as the HTF solar irradiation of 2900kWh/m2yr
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2.2 Externality studies in South Africa

Externality cost analysis research has gained prominence in South Africa, in order to
understand the unaccounted costs of electricity generation. Various studies were conducted
for the generation phase of coal fired power plant to determine the external cost associated
with producing electricity using coal. In 2003 a study on electricity and externalities was
performed by Spalding-Fecher and Matibe (2003) , to broaden the knowledge presented in a
previous research done by Van Horen (Van Horen, 1996a, Van Horen, 1996b) on externality
analysis of electric power generation in South Africa (Spalding-Fecher and Matibe, 2003).
This research evaluated the external costs involved in the production of electricity. The
environmental impacts were quantified and evaluated by using the damage cost approach.
The research found that “the central estimates of external costs were 40% and 20% of
industrial and residential tariffs respectively”. These results were inclusive of both negative
and positive externalities. The authors made recommendations on future research studies to
expand on the externality research and include more energy sources e.g. gas fired, nuclear
and renewable.

Thopil and Pouris (2010) explored the trends of externality research in power generation for
South Africa along international lines. The effects of harmful pollutants (SO2, NOx,
Particulates and CO2 eq) emitted during electricity production were evaluated in a more
recent study (Thopil and Pouris, 2015). These harmful pollutants are associated with risks
that cause human respiratory issues or are harmful to the environment. The study found that
the central estimates of external costs were approximately 70% of 2008 electricity prices.
The author shared that there is a need to diversify the energy sector and allow clean sources
an equal opportunity to compete in the market. The quantification of external costs were
accounted using the ExternE methodology. ExternE methodology follows the life cycle model
and was developed in Europe as part of the ExternE projects, where the process of cost
evaluation is called Impact-Pathway-Approach (Bickel and Friedrich, 2005).

In the South African studies the impact pathway method was used and this method is
another form of LCA. Table 2 provides an overview of the main externality studies conducted
in South Africa with costs adjusted for inflation (6% assumed average inflation for the 2017
calculation). The cost adjustments enable a better understanding for studies performed over
different time periods.

Table 2: Summary of externality studies in South Africa

Authors Externality costs Externality costs (ZA
(ZA c/kWh) c/kWh) 2017
(Van Horen, 1996a) 2.23-12.45 (1994)* 8.5-47.55
(Thopil and Pouris, 2015) 5.79-35.19 (2008)* 9.8-59.5

(Spalding-Fecher and Matibe, 2003) 1.40-9.30 (1999)* 4.0-26.5

*Base year for which externality costs have been calculated

3. Methodology
Figure 2 shows the system boundary of the analysed solar CSP plant which take into
account the various phases of the CSP plant life cycle. The study adopted the lifecycle
assessment as defined by the ISO (2006) standards. LCA is a preferred model to perform
environmental impact assessment for different energy systems both renewable (Klein and
Rubin, 2013) and non-renewable (Bickel and Friedrich, 2005). The life cycle boundary aided
the study in determining the entire life cycle of the solar plant, where the boundary consisted
of the following phases:
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 Manufacturing phase includes the extraction and production of the solar CSP plant
components. The Solar CSP plant comprises of three key systems solar field (collector
field) (SF), heat transfer system (HTF), the thermal storage system (TES), and the power
plant (PP) with the steam turbine and the generator (Viebahn et al., 2008).

 Construction phase refers to the activities related to the construction of the manufactured
plant components together with the transportation from production to the construction of
the solar CSP plant components.

 Operation and Maintenance phase includes the electricity consumption from the regional
grid to the power auxiliary loads.

 Dismantling phase- The dismantling phase refers to the energy required to dismantle the
power plant.

 Disposal Phase-The disposal phase refers to the waste management of the solar CSP
plant

Figure 2: Environmental Lifecycle phases the CSP power plant

Adapted from Klein and Rubin (2013)

The LCA approach is divided into two portions; the process portion and the monetary
evaluation portion. The framework was therefore adapted to calculate the impacts as well as
the damage cost and this is illustrated in Figure 3.
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Figure 3: Methodological framework adapted from ISO (2006)

3.1 Study Assumptions

A range of assumptions were used while implementing processes using the LCA tool for
each life cycle phase. Since inventory data was not available for the KaXu One power plant,
the study relied on the inventory data from Burkhardt III et al. (2011). Burkhardt III et al.
(2011) performed a similar study with the aim of determining the life cycle impact of a Solar
CSP with a focus on parabolic trough and the impacts of key design alternatives. The
assumptions used in this study for each phase of the life cycle are described in Table 3.

Table 3. Description of each phase within the LCA

Phase Assumptions
Manufacturing This process phase involves the production of the different component
data calculated using Equations 1, 2 and 3 to determine the mass of the
inventory component for the manufacturing phase of the solar CSP. The
motors, pumps, heaters and turbines do not form part of the system
components in Appendix A (table A.2). These non-system components
are considered to go through an extreme manufacturing process where
the impacts cannot be simply calculated by the manufacturer (Burkhardt III
et al., 2011). Therefore the economic input-output life cycle assessment
(EIO-LCA) method was used to model life cycle impacts of these
components. The EIO-LCA estimates the impacts associated with various
economical active materials. The emissions are then calculated using the
LCA tool where each major system is modelled as a separate plan and in
each plan the component material is used to represent the processes and
flows required to manufacture each system. The emissions in each plan
were then calculated and noted.
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Construction This phase considers the transportation of the major components which
include HTF, solar glass, steam cycle and solar salt which are not
produced locally but sourced in different countries around the world. The
embodied mass of the material was estimated using equations 1, 2 and 3
to calculate the mass from the reference plant in (Pihl et al., 2012) . Lastly
this phase also included the diesel burned during the construction where
the diesel burned during construction is proportional to the land area of the
CSP plant (Viebahn et al., 2008). The LCA model included different plans for
the major systems of the solar CSP and in each plan the transport
together with the estimated distances was modelled in each plan, the
diesel burned in machines to manufacture the different systems was also
modelled with reference to the different land requirements of each solar
CSP system.
Operation and This phase considered the electricity consumed by the plant at night when
Maintenance there is no direct sunlight. (Burkhardt III et al., 2011) was used as a
reference plant. Given the fact that the CSP plant in the Burkhardt III et al.
(2011) study has a 3% difference in capacity compared to the KaXu Solar
one solar plant, a 3% difference was assumed to calculate the energy
consumed by the plant. The LCA model included the HTF night time
circulation, the power block dependent loads and the salt pump where the
percentage of consumption was calculated from (Burkhardt III et al., 2011)
Dismantling Using a similar assumption as in the construction phase, where the diesel
burned during the dismantling phase was assumed to be proportional to
the land area of the CSP plant like in the Andasol 1 (Viebahn et al., 2008)
CSP plant, the assumption was also made in the Burkhardt III et al. (2011)
and (Corona et al., 2016) for a similar study The LCA model for this phase
was made up of one plan with the process and flows of the diesel burned
during dismantling for the total land area occupied by the CSP plant.
Disposal The disposal phase assumed that the material is landfilled and disposed
as part of municipal waste (Crawford, 2009), mainly because South Africa
disposes off almost all of its refuse in landfill sites (Eyetwa Moses Maleka
et al., 2010). However the salt and HTF were considered hazardous and
therefore returned to the manufacture ,which was a similar analogy made
in (Burkhardt III et al., 2011). The concrete, glass and cement were
modelled as inert waste and the rest of the material was modelled as
municipal solid waste landfill and lastly the transport element during
disposal for the HTF was also modelled.

This study adapted inventory data from Burkhardt III et al. (2011) and the mass inputs were
calculated using scaling factors equations 1, 2 and 3. A similar method of data sourcing was
adopted by Corona et al. (2016), Klein and Rubin (2013) and Wolfram et al. (2016) in their
study which makes it an acceptable method of inventory data collection.

Table A.1 (within the Appendix) shows a list of the component data for each of the power
plant systems. The embodied mass of the material was calculated using the equations from
the Pihl et al. (2010) and Pihl et al. (2012) research study; where Equation 1 shows a linear
relationship between the mass of the solar field components and the plant capacity. The
capacity of the solar plant determines the number of trough mirrors to be installed in the solar
field. Hence the HTF will follow suit since it runs in each of the troughs.
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 Cstudy 
m study ( solar field or HTF ) =m ref ( solar field or HTF )  
 (1)
 C ref 
Cstudy and m study ( solar field or HTF ) is the thermal capacity and the mass of the solar field or HTF
components of power plant of interest respectively; Cref and m ref ( solar field or HTF ) represent the

thermal capacity and mass of the solar field or HTF components of the reference plant,
respectively from Burkhardt III et al. (2011)

Equation 2 shows the investment cost equation which is assumed to give the relationship
between the component mass of the thermal cycle (power plant) and the plant capacity since
they do not have a linear relationship with the output. This equation was determined through
communication with a steam turbine manufacture in the Pihl et al. (2010) study.

0.89
 Cstudy 
m study ( Power Plant ) =m ref ( Power Plant )   (2)
 C 
 ref 
m study ( Power Plant ) is the mass of the power plant components power plant of interest; m
ref ( Power Plant ) represents the mass of the power plant components of the reference plant, from
Burkhardt III et al. (2011)

Equation 3 shows an area to volume scale which is an assumed relationship between the
mass of the storage tank components and the plant capacity Pihl et al. (2010), (Pihl et al.,
2012).

2
 Cstudy  3
m study (TES ) =m ref (TES )   (3)
 C 
 ref 

m study (TES ) is the mass of the thermal storage components of power plant of interest; m ref (TES )
represents the mass of the thermal storage components of the reference plant from
Burkhardt III et al. (2011)

The motors, pumps, heaters and turbines do not form part of the system components since
they go through an extreme manufacturing process where the impacts cannot be simply
calculated by the manufacturer (Burkhardt III et al., 2011). The economic input-output life
cycle assessment (EIO-LCA) method was used to model life cycle impacts of these
components and the dataset details for these components are given in Table A.2.

3.2 LCA evaluation tool to determine the impacts

The educational licence version of GaBi LCA evaluation software (Thinkstep GaBi) and
Ecoinvent databases (Weidema et al., 2013) were used for the study analysis. Ecoinvent
was specifically used in cases where GaBi did not have the specified process to provide the
emissions. Ecoinvent is a life cycle inventory (LCI) database that consists of data for all
economic activities and is accessible worldwide. It provides reliable background data to form
part of the life cycle assessment studies (Weidema et al., 2013). It has also been widely used
in various LCA literature studies for a range of renewable energy across the world such as, in
Australia (Wolfram et al. (2016)), in the USA (Klein and Rubin (2013)), in Spain (Corona et al.
(2016)) and Arvizu et al. (2011).
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3.3 Damage (externality) cost Calculation

The damage cost of each subcategory was then calculated using equation 4 where the
damage is the product of the impact and the unit cost relative to the externality (Thopil,
2013).
Damage = Impact x Cost (4)

Where, Damage = the total monetary cost

Impact = the total number of cases per externality
Cost = monetary value per case of externality

Table 4 shows the subcategories and descriptions of each emission evaluated in the
analysis.
Table 4: External costs sub-categories for the LCC assessment
External costs subcategories Description
Marginal Damage Costs for Greenhouse Gases
Climate change according to IPCC 2013 (Stocker, 2014)
Human health Damage costs derived from human mortality and
morbidity due to air emissions of NH3, Non-
Methane Volatile Organic Compounds (NMVOC),
NOx, Primary Particulate Matter ‘‘coarse” with an
aerodynamic diameter smaller than 10 µm but
larger than 2.5 µm (PMco), Primary Particulate
Matter with an aerodynamic diameter smaller
than 2.5 µm (PM2.5) and SO2,
Damage costs from impacts on fauna and flora
due to acidification and eutrophication (caused
by air emissions of NH3, NMVOC, NOX, PPM,
Loss of biodiversity SO2)
Damage cost from crop losses due to O3 and
Local effects on crops: expected benefit from nitrogen deposition in soil
Regional N and O3 (avoidance of fertilizers)
Damage costs of air pollution affecting building
Damage to materials:SO2 and NO2 materials (corrosion and soiling)
Source: (Corona et al., 2016)

The marginal damage cost in Table 5 from CASES (2008) was used to calculate the damage
cost for the climate change emissions. The CASES dataset for emissions from an unknown
height was applied since the height of emissions was not known and is shown in Table 6.
The currency conversion between EU and South Africa was calculated using the exchange
rate from OECD Stat (2017).

Therefore a currency conversion rate of R15 for 1€ was used for the 2017 cost calculations.
The rate was used to convert the marginal damage cost for GHG emissions in Table 5 and
health related pollutants in Table 6, respectively to ZA (Rands). As indicated in Table 6, four
separate impact categories were analysed, with multiple pollutants contributing within each
category. These values were then used as cost inputs in equation 4.
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Table 5: Marginal costs for greenhouse gas emissions

Low estimate Central Estimate High Estimate

€/t CO2 eq 10 25 35
ZA (Rands)/t CO2 eq 150 375 525
ZA (Rands)/kg CO2eq 0.15 0.375 0.525
Euro values obtained from (CASES, 2008)

Table 6: Euro per kg unknown height for emissions year specified (2017)
Country: EU27 ZA (Rands)/ kg
Euro/kg (calculated)
Human Health
NH3 4.70 70.5
NMVOC 0.191 2.87
NOX 5.334 80.01
PPMco 1.112 16.69
PPM25 19.422 291.33
SO2 5.376 80.65
Loss of Biodiversity
NH3 2.771 41.57
NOX 0.729 10.94
SO2 0.162 2.43
Local Effect on Crops:
NMVOC 0.062 0.93
NOX 0.263 3.95
Damage to Materials
NOX 0.042 0.64
SO2 0.153 0.23
Euro values in year 2000 terms obtained from (CASES, 2008)

4. Results and Discussion

The results show the analysis followed to estimate the external cost of the KaXu solar one
CSP plant, which also includes the impacts calculated using the GaBi software based on the
framework and methodology indicated in the previous sections.

The concept of functional unit as defined in the ISO (2006) standards, as a measured
performance of a product system for use as a reference unit, is used to analyse and interpret
the results (ISO, 2006). It provides a reference to normalise the data in order to compare the
different systems being studied and it is represented as an impact per unit of delivered
service. In the case, the results were normalised to a functional unit of 1 kWh. The KaXu
Solar One plant has a capacity of 100MW (and a capacity factor of 36.5%) which implies and
annual output of 320 000MWh of electricity as per the specification characteristics in section
3. Over a 20 year life cycle this would translate to a total output of 6400 GWh of electricity
generated by the power plant. The total damages GHG and non GHG damages in monetary
value are then divided by 6400 GWh to arrive at damage costs per kWh. This process aids
comparisons between different technologies over a life cycle period.

Table 7: Impacts over the life cycle of the CSP plant

Externality sub- Impact Impact per Life cycle phase
categories g/kWh (g/kWh)
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M C O&M D&D

Climate Change (GHG

32.21 14.1 3.1 7.3 7.7
eq)

Human health 0.214 0.093 0.046 0.021 0.054

Loss of biodiversity 0.149 0.061 0.038 0.011 0.039
Local effects on crops 0.130 0.032 0.041 0.013 0.045
Damage to materials 0.122 0.039 0.037 0.011 0.034
Total non GHG 0.615 0.224 0.162 0.056 0.172

Table 7 illustrates the impacts associated with each sub category in relation to each life cycle
phase. It is evident from the table that that climate change emissions are higher than the
other emissions. In the climate change sub category the highest contribution (14.1 gCO2-
eq/kWh) to the total impact was from the manufacturing phase as shown in Figure 4. This
was due to the intensive production processes of different components material; the most
evident in the analysis was the salt and solar glass manufacturing processes. The O&M and
D&D phase emissions are high in the climate change subcategories because of the
electricity consumption, diesel and transportation requirements.

Total GHG per life cycle phase

35 1.4

30 1.2

Central estimate (ZA cents/kWh)

25 1

20 0.8
g CO2eq/kWh

15 0.6

10 0.4

5 0.2

0 Manufacturing Construction O&M D&D Total 0

GHG (g/kWh) 14.1 3.1 7.3 7.7 32.2
ZA cents/kWh 0.529 0.116 0.274 0.289 1.208

Figure 4. Total GHG damages vs impact over each life cycle phase

In the human health sub category; the highest contribution also was from the manufacturing
phase due to high emissions of ammonia, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. This is also
evident in Figure 5, where the manufacturing phase damage cost (0.7c/kWh) is higher than
the other phases. The manufacturing phase was also seen as the highest contributor to the
emissions in the loss of biodiversity subcategory due to higher contribution of nitrogen
oxides. This result was also similar for the damage to materials sub category, due to high
emissions in sulphur dioxide.

1 gCO2 eq for climate change

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Total non GHG pollutant per life cycle phase

0.7 1.8
1.6
0.6
1.4
0.5
Total pollutant (g/kWh)

1.2

ZA cents/kWh
0.4 1

0.3 0.8
0.6
0.2
0.4
0.1
0.2
0 Manufacturing Construction O&M D&D Total 0
Pollutant (g/kWh) 0.224 0.161 0.056 0.172 0.615
ZA cents/kWh 0.7 0.46 0.11 0.35 1.62

Figure 5. Total non GHG pollutant damages vs impact over each life cycle phase

As shown in figure 6 (and Table 7) the manufacturing phase contributes to 43.4% of the
impact in the human health category, to 24.6% of the impacts attributed to damage to crops.
The construction phase, contributes highly (31.5%) to the damage to crops category.
Pollutant emissions during the O&M are comparatively low across all life cycle phases.

Life cycle phase impact: non GHG category

1.000
0.900
0.800
0.700
0.600
0.500
0.400
g/kWh

0.300
0.200
0.100
0.000 Health Biodiversity Crops Materials
D&D 0.054 0.039 0.045 0.034
O&M 0.021 0.011 0.013 0.011
Construction 0.046 0.038 0.041 0.037
Manufacturing 0.093 0.061 0.032 0.039

Figure 6. Breakdown of impacts per life cycle vs non GHG categories

Table 8 shows the overall results from the study including the external cost. It is interesting to
note that though the impacts of the climate change category (32 g CO2 eq/kWh) are much
greater than the impacts pollutants on human health (0.214g/kWh) the damages attributed to
human health (1.37 ZA c/kWh) are higher than the damage attributed to climate change
(central estimate of 1.21 ZA c/kWh). This is due to the higher cost evaluation of pollutants
that contribute to human health effects as compared to climate change (see Table 5 and 6).
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Table 8: External costs associated with the CSP plant

Externality sub- Impact External Cost / sub M C O&M D&D
categories g/kWh category
ZA c/kWh
0.48 (low) 0.211 0.046 0.109 0.115
Climate Change
32.2 1.21 (central) 0.529 0.116 0.274 0.289
(GHG eq)
1.69 (high) 0.74 0.163 0.383 0.40

Human health 0.214 1.37 0.568 0.404 0.096 0.301

Loss of biodiversity 0.149 0.202 0.117 0.041 0.006 0.036
Local effects on crops 0.130 0.039 0.008 0.014 0.002 0.014
Damage to materials 0.122 0.013 0.006 0.0025 0.002 0.0026
Total non GHG 0.615 1.624 0.7 0.461 0.106 0.353

2.10 (low) 0.911 0.508 0.216 0.469

Total External Cost --- 2.83 (central) 1.23 0.578 0.380 0.640
3.31 (high) 1.44 0.625 0.490 0.760

The construction phase results are closely followed by the D&D phase again due to the
assumed transportation requirements for this study. In the D&D phase, it was assumed that
the material is landfilled and disposed as part of municipal waste (Crawford, 2009), mainly
because South Africa disposes of, almost all of refuse in landfill sites (Eyetwa Moses Maleka
et al., 2010). This excluded the salt and the HTF which is returned to the manufacture
(Burkhardt III et al., 2011) because these are considered hazardous material.

The results indicate that the total damage cost range: 2.10 ZA c/kWh (1.4 €/MWh, low
estimate), 2.83 ZA c/kWh (1.9 €/MWh, central estimate), and 3.31 ZA c/kWh (2.2 €/MWh,
high estimate). It was also observed during the study that NH3, SO2 and NOX were the major
emissions that repeated in all the categories. The local effects on crops and damage to
material for the solar CSP plant may be classified as having low damage costs in comparison
to the other sub-categories.

The results comparison in this section only compares the results for the climate change sub
category since it was found to be the highest contributor to the environmental impact results.
The numbers from Table 1 were compared with the results determined in this study and the
comparison is illustrated in Figure 7.

In Figure 7 it is evident that the values reported in literature range from 14-33.4 g CO2
eq/kWh, which equates to a damage cost range of 0.14-1.172 €/MWh. The values calculated
in the analysed CSP results from this current study are in the range of 32.2 g CO2 eq/kWh,
which equates to a damage cost range of 0.32-1.133 €/MWh. it can also be observed from
Figure 7 that there exist some slight variations between the results from this study and the
literature. The highest variation being 18 g CO2 eq/kWh (56.3% lower than the analysed solar
CSP plant) which was reported by Arvizu et al. (2011). This variation observed from Arvizu et
al. (2011) results can be explained by the study having a rather wide range of references,
hence the wide range in the environmental impact results. However the analysed CSP
results from the current study are within the wide reported range.

2 Calculated using low and high cost value in table 5 (14kg/MWh x 0.01€/kg; 33.4kg/MWh x .35€/kg)
3 Similar logic to footnote 2
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The second highest variation of 6 g CO2 eq/kWh (25% lower than the analysed solar CSP
plant) is between the analysis by Burkhardt et al. (2012) and the analysed solar CSP result in
this study. Burkhardt et al. (2012) used the harmonization method to get an estimate of the
GHGs for the solar CSP. The arguments from the article was that the article provided an
approximation of the GHG emissions for a solar CSP plant and that the generic method of
performing LCA is dependent on various factors; with that, they may reasonably differ from
the results obtained by the harmonization method.

Due to the maturity of data internationally, the CSP studies incorporate real data from the
actual CSP plant and hence this can also explain the variations observed in the current study
and that presented in literature. Although there might exist small differences in the study
model. The analysed solar CSP plant results are within the range presented in literature with
very minimal variations, which implies that the results of the current study in the climate
change category are in line with those reported in other studies.

The case study research design means that the study is performed on a unique case and the
depending plant capacity, life cycle boundary authors assumptions the results may differ.
Furthermore the slight variations in the results with the overall literature studies can also be
attributed by the different transportation requirements; different analysis tools used which can
significantly influence the overall impact.

Solar CSP studies

40
33 32 33.4 32.2
35 29.9
GHG g/CO2 eq/kWh

27.6 28
30 26
25
20
14
15
10
5
0
Corona et Burkhardt Viebahn et Desideri et Burkhardt Arvizu et Arvizu et Viebahn et Current
al. (2016) III et al. al. (2008) al. (2013) et al. al. (2011) al. (2011) al. (2011) study
(2011) (2012) results

Figure 7: Comparison of climate change impacts of CSP technologies4

5. Conclusions

The LCA results from the study in Table 8 illustrated that the damage cost for the solar CSP
was 2.10 ZA c/kWh (1.4 €/MWh, low estimate), 2.83 ZA c/kWh (1.9 €/MWh, central
estimate), and 3.31 ZA c/kWh (2.2 €/MWh, high estimate). The results also showed that the
climate change results attributed to 43% of the total cost when considering the central
estimate. The second highest emissions were from the human health subcategory which
attributed to 48% of the central estimate. These two categories combined contributed to
roughly 91% of the total central estimate external cost.

4 Arvizu et al (2011) provides a range of 14-32g CO2 eq/kWh

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The manufacturing phase was found to be a major contributor for almost all of the
subcategories, which is due to the energy required to manufacture the system components
of the solar CSP. The second highest contributor to the climate change subcategory is the
dismantling and disposal phase due to the transportation requirements of the solar salt and
the HTF since these are very hazardous components and existing studies suggested
returning the components to the manufacturer, which prompted the assumption that these
components be returned to the manufacturer and leading to transportation overseas. The
O&M phase had a minimal contribution to the total impact since the amount of energy
required for the operation of the plant is very low. The construction phase was the second
highest contributor to the external cost for most of the other subcategories which was due to
the effect of nitrogen oxides, ammonia and sulphur dioxide emitted during transportation of
the major components from overseas. The loss of biodiversity subcategory was discussed in
the investigation by Vezmar et al. (2014) as a disadvantage for the solar CSP plant. However
in the South African context this effect is minimal on flora and fauna together with wildlife,
since most of the CSP plants are located in the desert areas in the Northern Cape. Hence
the benefits of locating the CSP plants in the desert were also suggested in Turney and
Fthenakis (2011).

The manufacturing phase contributes to 43.5% of the total results for the central estimate.
This is then followed by the D&D phase which attributes to 22.6% primarily because of the
transportation of hazardous material back to the manufacturer. The construction phase
contributes significantly to the other externalities outside the climate change category and
this is again is due to the transport factor emissions with overall contribution being 20.4% to
the total damage cost. The O&M phase which requires low operating energy therefore has
the lowest damage cost contribution of 13.4% towards to total central estimate damage cost.

The comparison analysis between the GHG emissions produced during the LCA of the
analysed CSP (KaXu Solar One) plant shows that the results are in line with those reported
in other literature studies which range between 14 to 33.4 g CO2 eq/kWh (leading to a
damage cost of 0.14-1.17 €/MWh), with slight variations which can probably explained by the
difference in transportation requirements. The South African CSP manufacturing sector is
dependent on the import of major CSP components from developed countries such as USA,
Germany and Spain which manufacture the elements within the country thereby reducing the
impacts caused by the transport activities. The study also hopes to create debate within
private industry to provide data, thereby enabling to verify the analysis by incorporating
primary data.

Another major contribution of the study is that the external cost calculation can be compared
to the internal costs of CSP in South Africa. The internal cost of CSP (at which independent
power producers sell to the utility) for the 1st bid window in the REIPPPP - of which the CSP
plant was part of - was R2.7/kWh (PPIAF, 2014). The central external cost of 2.83c/kWh (as
shown in Table 8), is therefore roughly 1% of the internal cost, with the low and high external
costs being, 0.08% and 1.2% respectively. However CSP external cost are low compared to
conventional external cost central estimates of 13c/kWh (Thopil & Pouris, 2015). It is
important to note that the estimation of conventional external costs were limited to the
generation phase and not the full life cycle.

Over the past decade average South African electricity prices have increased at a rate much
higher than inflation (PPIAF, 2014). However average utility electricity prices of 0.83R/kWh
(Eskom, 2017) are still lower than most recent CSP internal cost of 1.64R/kWh (PPIAF,
2014), with differences being expected to narrow as utility price increases and renewable
costs decrease. Therefore the component of external costs relating to the internal costs are
bound to be vary because of the dynamic nature of electricity prices.
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6. Recommendations
The world today is on a drive to reduce greenhouse gases. Renewable energy based
electricity generation has enabled reduction of greenhouse gases to a large extent. However
even renewable based electricity technologies tend to have unaccounted impacts and
damages. Externality studies provide a real picture of the real cost of producing electricity
and the emissions produced during the production of electricity for various technologies. This
research study and other research studies found that the solar CSP plant can produce
electricity with less greenhouse gases compared to those emitted by fossil fuels.
Furthermore the function of the thermal storage system of a solar CSP plant is to store
energy to be used at a later stage, which gives solar CSP plants an advantage against the
other renewable technologies. This feature mitigates the intermittency associated with
renewables to a certain extent.

From the results and discussion section, it can be concluded that the location of these plants
should be carefully considered to reduce the effect on human health, impact on crops and
loss of biodiversity. This study also found that the transport requirements for the main
components of the solar CSP plant attribute to high emissions. Hence the local community,
environment and economy can benefit if manufacturing of the main components are
localised, thereby reducing the emissions caused by the transport activities. While expanding
local manufacturing activities can be challenging due to open markets and decreasing costs
of solar CSP components, mechanisms can be put in place to identify higher quality
production which is incentivised by national policy. Emphasis on manufacturing improved
quality of components can lead to innovation and R&D within the national sphere.

The results of this study applied engineering life cycle analysis. However there remains a
level of uncertainty, which may have led to an over or under estimation of the results. The
solar CSP plants in South Africa are still fairly new; which used assumptions (particularly on
plant material inventory) based on similar studies conducted internationally. Hence the
results of the study can be verified and improved by obtaining inventory data from an
operational CSP plant in South Africa. Therefore future research can augment the current
work by using primary inventory data from the actual CSP plant, and from the international
suppliers in order to get the exact quantity embodied by each material, enabling an accurate
inventory analysis of the system. Future research can also look at the LCA for solar tower
operated CSP plants as well as other renewable technologies in South Africa thus enabling
comparisons of environmental impacts and costs.

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Appendix
The inventory data from Burkhardt III et al. (2011) was used in conjunction with equations 1,
2 and 3 to calculate the mass inventory of the CSP plant under consideration and the results
are represented in Table A.1

Table A.1: Main LCI Data (components) for KaXu Solar one for the manufacturing
phase
Power Plant
HTF System 1.45E+04 Systems 7.71E+04
Material Mass [x103 kg] Material Mass [x103 kg]
Aluminum 5.11E+01 Aluminum 1.84E+01
Calcium Silicate 6.37E+01 Asphalt 7.45E+03
Carbon Steel 3.32E+03 Brick 2.44E+02
Concrete 5.71E+03 Bronze 6.95E-01
Copper 6.22E+00 Calcium Silicate 3.02E+01
Foam Glass 2.35E+01 Carbon Steel 2.21E+03
Gravel 7.58E+02 Cement 4.80E+01
HTF 4.15E+03 Ceramic Tiles 1.10E+01
Iron 3.80E+00 Concrete 1.88E+04
Mineral Wool 4.29E+02 Copper 6.61E+01
Nitrogen 1.76E+01 Fiber Cement 7.54E+01
Stainless Steel 2.17E+01 Fiber Glass 4.45E-02
Solar Field 5.62E+04 Flat Glass 1.03E+01
Material Mass [x103 kg] Foam Slab 1.24E+01
Aluminum 1.62E+01 Gravel 4.71E+04
Carbon Steel 1.67E+04 Iron 3.55E+01
Ceramic Tiles 1.57E+02 Mineral Wool 3.07E+01
Polyamide Thin
Concrete 2.72E+04 Film 3.88E-01
Copper 5.57E+01 Polyethylene 8.81E+02
Ferronickel 1.02E+01 PVC 9.19E+00
Glue 1.11E+01 Rubber 2.73E+00
Iron 4.69E+01 Stainless Steel 3.78E+01
Glass Fiber
Low-Iron Glass 1.10E+04 Reinforced plastic 1.91E+01
Nickel 1.02E+00 TES 7.65E+04
Paint 2.11E+02 Material Mass [x103 kg]
Polyethylene 4.79E+00 Aluminum 5.10E-01
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Polypropylene 1.20E+00 Calcium Silicate 1.38E+03

PVC 1.48E+01 Carbon Steel 3.06E+03
Silver 1.05E+00 Concrete 9.90E+03
Stainless Steel 8.11E+02 Copper 2.32E+00
Fire Bricks 2.57E+02
Foam Glass 1.74E+02
Total Embodied Mass: Iron 8.21E-01
2.24E+08 kg Polyethylene 8.11E+00
Polypropylene 7.79E+01
Potassium Nitrate 2.43E+04
Sodium Nitrate 3.65E+04
Stainless Steel 8.15E+02

Table A.2: EIO LCA data

System components Dataset name
HTF System #332410: Power boiler and heat exchanger manufacturing
Heaters and heat exchangers #333911: Pump and pumping equipment manufacturing
Pumping equipment
Power Plant Systems #332410: Power boiler and heat exchanger manufacturing
Steam cycle #332420: Metal tank, heavy gauge, manufacturing
#333611: Turbine and turbine generator set units manufacturing
#333911: Pump and pumping equipment manufacturing
#334513: Industrial process variable instruments
#335999: Miscellaneous electrical equipment manufacturing

Solar Field #334413: Semiconductor and related device manufacturing

Semiconductor #334513: Industrial process variable instruments
Instrumentation & Control #335314: Relay and industrial control manufacturing
System

TES #333911: Pump and pumping equipment manufacturing

Pumping equipment
Source: (Carnegie Mellon University Green Design Institute, 2017),(Burkhardt III et al., 2011)
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Life cycle analysis of external costs of a parabolic trough Concentrated Solar

Power plant

Highlights

 External cost evaluation of 100MW parabolic trough CSP plant in South Africa
 Greenhouse gas impacts and non-greenhouse gas impacts have been investigated
 External costs are accounted over life cycle phases of power plant
 Greenhouse gas and human health impacts account for 91% of total external cost
 Manufacturing life cycle phase accounts for 43% of total external cost
 Local power plant inventory estimated from international data