Abstract This paper compares two main technologies of solar to electrical energy conversion, namely solar tower (ST) and photovoltaic (PV). For a fair comparison, a 100 MW same sized ST and PV plants are designed for a region with very good direct normal irradiance (DNI) and global horizontal irradiance (GHI). The initial design of the ST plant is optimized for solar multiple and thermal energy storage hours, and the PV plant is optimized for the optimal distance between parallel PV arrays. The ST plant has superior annual energy output of 513040.16 MWh compared to 270754.6 MWh from PV plant and capacity utilization factor of 58.6% in comparison to 30.9% from PV plant. On the contrary, the land use factor and solar to electric efficiency (SEE) of the PV plant is superior to ST plant while levelized cost of energy of ST plant is 2.83 times higher than the PV plant. Although ST plant has superior technical performance but way better economic performance of PV plant makes it the stand out solar to electrical energy technology for a location with promising GHI and DNI. This paper provides very useful guidelines for the policymakers to select a particular technology for the future solar-based power generation projects.

中文翻译：

---

塔式和光伏电站的设计、优化及性能比较

摘要 本文比较了太阳能向电能转换的两种主要技术，即太阳能塔式（ST）和光伏（PV）。为了公平比较，为具有非常好的直接法向辐照度 (DNI) 和全球水平辐照度 (GHI) 的地区设计了 100 MW 相同大小的 ST 和 PV 发电厂。ST 电站的初始设计针对太阳能和热能存储时间进行了优化，光伏电站针对并联光伏阵列之间的最佳距离进行了优化。ST 电站年发电量 513040.16 MWh，高于光伏电站的 270754.6 MWh，产能利用率为 58.6%，光伏电站为 30.9%。相反，光伏电站的土地利用系数和太阳能发电效率（SEE）优于ST电站，而ST电站的平准化能源成本为2。比光伏电站高83倍。虽然 ST 电站具有优越的技术性能，但光伏电站更好的经济性能使其成为具有前景的 GHI 和 DNI 地区的太阳能到电能技术中脱颖而出。本文为政策制定者为未来的太阳能发电项目选择特定技术提供了非常有用的指导。