Climate change has drastically increased causing global warming due to emission ofrngreenhouse gas with the provision of energy services that community of the world uses. Inrnorder to work against this trend, varieties of researches are necessary to avoid the negativernimpacts of global warming. Among the various forms, of utilizing energy mechanisms thatrncurtails the emission of greenhouse gases is solar energy electricity production.rnIn this work, theoretical performance of concentrated solar power system (CSPS) usingrnparabolic trough collectors (PTC) is investigated. The software TRNSYS and the SolarrnThermal Electric Components (STEC) library are used to model the power system design andrnsimulations. This model was constructed using data from an existing 30 MW Solar ElectricrnGenerating System (SEGS VI) using PTCâ€™s in Karmer Junction, California. Input data andrnresults of the simulation of the already existing SEGS VI plant were used for validating therncurrent model.rnThe validated model is used for building a 10 MW system using TRNSYS. The referencernstate point properties which are used as inputs in the 10 MW TRNSYS model are determinedrnusing MATLAB software. A MATLAB code is used to find the initial pressure after givingrnfirst guess for the initial pressure and checking the error. This initial pressure is found to bernP (1) = 100 [bar]. This pressure is found for initial steam temperature of 371 OC. Then,rnhourly simulations of electrical power and direct normal irradiance (DNI) are determined forrnselected days of year 2001 (for which complete data are available), for Adigala, Ethiopia.rnDifferent kinds of criteria for land use, annual irradiation and infrastructure are discussed inrnorder to properly locate the CSP plants. Depending on the data gathered and on the criteriarnset for the CSP installation, north eastern Ethiopia is a suitable site since it has a flat landrntopology and high solar insolation.rnAs the cost of power generation by CSP technologies is of great importance for thernpromotion of the technology to be proven as competitive alternative to the conventional oil orrngas fired power plants. This thesis work tackles the economic aspect by investigating the costrnof electricity generation of the modeled parabolic trough power plant using simulation toolrnSAM (System Advisor Model).