Due to the significant variations in electricity generation and its demand, the power plant owners are encountered with challenges of economic operation. Among all, Compressed air energy storage (CAES) technology has proposed itself as a reliable and efficient solution to match the two sides. This paper deals with a modeled compressed air energy storage power plant which has been optimized thermodynamically through an efficient genetic algorithm code. The results of this optimized model, considered as the base case, show that the power plant is technically and financially justifiable. In order to obtain a more tangible realization, it is necessary to verify the results against the variation of key parameters. In this study, the sensitivity analysis is performed based on main parameters including plant loading and ambient condition and the resultant trends of each case are presented. This approach will help the designers to analyze the quality of their designs in different situations. © Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2016.