Title: Exergy, energy, and exergoeconomic assessments of a solar-based novel power generation system using helium Brayton cycle

Authors: Achintya Sharma; Anoop Kumar Shukla; Onkar Singh; Meeta Sharma

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Noida, 201313, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Noida, 201313, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Harcourt Butler Technical University, Kanpur, 208002, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Noida, 201313, India

Abstract: This study presents a novel solar power tower (SPT)-based power plant integrating a helium Brayton cycle (HBC) as the topping cycle and a recuperative organic Rankine cycle as waste heat recovery cycle. Energy, exergy, and exergoeconomic analyses were performed numerically. Results demonstrate that the proposed system achieved improvements of 19.86% in energy efficiency and 19.85% in exergy efficiency, however, at a 9.41% increase in overall plant cost compared to the conventional SPT-HBC configuration. Therefore, the proposed system achieved energy and exergy efficiencies of 34.45% and 36.89%, respectively, and a levelised cost of electricity of 43.23 $/MWh.

Keywords: solar power tower; SPT; recuperative ORC; helium Brayton cycle; HBC; exergoeconomic analysis; exergy-energy analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEX.2026.153924

International Journal of Exergy, 2026 Vol.50 No.1, pp.57 - 70

Received: 31 Oct 2025
Accepted: 16 Nov 2025
Published online: 08 Jun 2026 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article