Thermodynamic and Economic Evaluation of Hybridization Biomass-solar for a Cogeneration Power Plant in a Cuban Sugar Mill, George Washington

Abstract: This study evaluates the thermodynamic and economic performance of hybridization of biomass-solar for a cogeneration power plant in a Cuban sugar mill, George Washington. The evaluation is performed by varying the parameters of the thermal power block and considering scenarios with 1) bagasse and marabú, 2) bagasse and solar field, and 3) bagasse, marabú and solar field as heat sources for the cogeneration cycle. The most feasible configuration combines all the three heat sources having the superheated steam parameters of 100 bar and 540 ⁰C and the solar field aperture area of 88,560 m2 using SkyTrough collectors. The NPV for the proposed system is 30.97 million USD which indicates that it is economically feasible and the LCOE of 0.091 USD/kWh is in the range of a typical LCOE for biomass electricity generation with a stoker boiler (0.06 – 0.21 USD/kWh).