Using carbon dioxide as working fluid receives increasing interest since the Kyoto Protocol. In this paper, thermodynamic analysis was conducted for proposed CO2-based Rankine cycle powered by solar energy. It can be used to provide power output, refrigeration and hot water. Carbon dioxide is used as working fluid with supercritical state in solar collector. Theoretical analysis was carried out to investigate performances of the CO2-based Rankine cycle. The interest was focused on comparison of the performance with that of solar cell and those when using other fluids as working fluids. In addition, the performance and characteristics of the thermodynamic cycle are studied for different seasons. The obtained results show that using CO2 as working fluid in the Rankine cycle owns maximal thermal efficiency when the working temperature is lower than 250.0 degrees C. The power generation efficiency is about 8%, which is comparable with that of solar cells. But in addition to power generation, the CO2-based solar utilization system can also supply thermal energy. Copyright (c) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.