Annual energy yield and levelized cost are popular ways to evaluate dispatchable concentrating solar power, but the limitations that emerge for thermal-oil parabolic trough plants located in cold semi-arid locations are overlooked by these aggregated performance indicators. What is proposed in this investigation is a coordination among the sizes of solar-field aperture, amount of thermal-energy-storage, and a forecast-driven supervisory plant control strategy to mitigate seasonal energy imbalance, part load operation, and cost increase in a 50 MW parabolic trough concentrating solar power plant in Mandalgobi, Mongolia. The plant characteristics considered are the EuroTrough-150 collectors, Therminol VP-1 heat-transfer fluid, indirect two-tank molten salt thermal energy storage, reheated Rankine cycle, design direct normal irradiance of 0.80 kW m$^{-2}$, heat-transfer-fluid temperatures of 280/395 $^\circ$C, solar field efficiency of 67.4\%, power block efficiency of 35.72\%, and overall solar-to-electric conversion efficiency of 22.03\%. According to the results for the seasons, significant seasonal imbalance is observed due to the lack of charge capacity in the storage during the cold months. For example, on March, June, September, and December, the plant generates 580.12, 867.64, 511.76, and 105.31 MWh of electric energy, respectively. Also, storage makes 107, 295, and 75 MWh contribution on the corresponding days, but it has almost no value in winter due to insufficient charging opportunities of the field. On this basis, the methodology integrates seasonal analysis, multi-criteria sizing of solar-field aperture and thermal-energy storage, as well as a receding-horizon controller which sets the heat-transfer fluid flow rate, thermal-energy-storage charges-discharges, and loading of the turbines. According to the findings, the summer day yields 8.24 times more energy than the December one, whereas storage provides 34.00\% of electric power on the summer day and only 14.66–18.44\% during shoulder seasons. The economic optimum of the solar-field aperture changes from the reference value of 261,600 m$^2$ to 523,200 m$^2$ at the solar multiple of 2.0 and LCOE of USD 0.2143 kWh$^{-1}$. It can be concluded that cold weather trough dispatchability cannot be attained simply because of storage capacity, but rather it requires a sufficient area for the creation of charge opportunities as well as supervision of these opportunities to stabilize turbine operations.