Socio-economic and environmental effects of concentrated solar power in Spain: A multiregional input output analysis Blanca Corona a,n,1 , Cristina de la Rúa b,2 , Guillermo San Miguel a,1 a Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, c/José Gutiérrez Abascal 2, 28006 Madrid, Spain b CIEMAT, Energy Systems Analysis Unit, Avda. Complutense, 40, 28040 Madrid, Spain article info Article history: Received 2 December 2015 Received in revised form 15 March 2016 Accepted 20 March 2016 abstract Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is receiving increasing attention as a technology with the potential to provide clean electricity in a cost effective and dispatchable manner. Despite its renewable nature, solar power generation generates impacts that need to be adequately evaluated and managed. The objective of this paper is to estimate the socioeconomic and environmental life cycle impacts of the production of electricity by a commercial CSP plant using Multiregional Input Output Analysis. These effects have been estimated in terms of additional economic activity, value added, employment creation, climate change, acidification, photochemical oxidant formation and primary energy con- sumption. Additionally, the economic sectors and countries with higher effects in the value chain have been identified. The results are presented both in gross and net terms, including not only the effects of the system’s life cycle, but also the avoided effects derived from the displacement of other technologies in the Spanish electricity market. The effects of the displaced electricity have been calculated by esti- mating the Levelized Cost Of Energy of the mix of marginal technologies displaced by the CSP plant. The results indicate that producing electricity in a CSP plant and selling it into the Spanish electricity market results in net positive impacts on the economy, the employment and the environment both at a national and global scale. Taking into consideration the electricity technologies displaced by the CSP plant, the socioeconomic net effects amount to 167 €/MWh of goods and services generated, 87.9 €/MWh of value added and 4.67 h/MWh of employment creation. The global and net environmental impacts on climate change, photochemical oxidant formation, acidification and primary energy consumption amount to À188 kg eq CO 2 /MWh, 8 g eq NMVOC/MWh, À389 g eq SO 2 /MWh and À4169 MJ/MWh, respectively, implying a net prevention of pollutant emissions and primary energy consumption. & 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Global energy consumption has been growing exponentially since the Industrial Revolution [1]. Over 80% of this demand is currently met by fossil fuels, a situation that is starting to show not only the severe detrimental consequences to the global environ- ment and the instability of the existing economic model but it also puts at risk the living standards of future generations. In an attempt to change this trend, governments worldwide are imple- menting policies intended to promote the use of locally available renewable energy resources [2,3]. One of the technologies receiving increasing scientific and commercial attention is Con- centrating Solar Power (CSP) [4]. CSP plants use mirrors or lenses to generate heat from concentrated solar radiation, which is sub- sequently employed to drive a thermodynamic cycle (usually Rankine) for power generation. The deployment of this technology has been very rapid during the last decade primarily in Spain (2304 MWe installed capacity in 2015) and the USA (approxi- mately 1730MWe in 2015), due to a favourable regulatory fra- mework. New plants are also under construction or under con- sideration in other countries with good solar resources like India, China, Chile, Australia, South Africa and MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region [5,6]. Regardless of their renewable nature, the collection, transfor- mation and use of energy resources generate impacts on our environment. Hence, estimating the sustainability of alternative technologies for power generation is of paramount importance. Different methodologies are applied to achieve this goal, ranging from Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) (including environmental LCA, social LCA and Life Cycle Costing) to economic tools such as Cost Benefit Analysis, Input Output Analysis and Levelized Cost Of Energy (LCOE) calculation [7]. Most of these methodologies focus Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/solmat Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solmat.2016.03.014 0927-0248/& 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. n Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: blanca.corona@upm.es (B. Corona), cristina.delarua@ciemat.es (C.d.l. Rúa). 1 Tel.: þ34 914524862. 2 Tel.: þ34 913466091. Please cite this article as: B. Corona, et al., Socio-economic and environmental effects of concentrated solar power in Spain: A multiregional input output analysis, Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solmat.2016.03.014i Solar Energy Materials & Solar Cells ∎ (∎∎∎∎) ∎∎∎–∎∎∎