Design, cost and performance comparisons of several solar thermal systems for process heat. Volume I. Executive summary

Conceptual designs of central receiver, parabolic dish, and parabolic trough systems are obtained for several process heat applications. Cost and performance estimates are made for each of these designs and these are used to calculate levelized delivered process heat costs. The results indicate that central receiver systems will provide energy costs competitive with that afforded by the parabolic trough and parabolic dish systems over the range of demand sizes and temperatures studies - above 3 MW/sub t/ and above 200/sup 0/F.