![]() History Solar steam engine for water pumping, near Los Angeles circa 1901Ī legend has it that Archimedes used a "burning glass" to concentrate sunlight on the invading Roman fleet and repel them from Syracuse. The DEWA project in Dubai, under construction in 2019, held the world record for lowest CSP price in 2017 at US$73 per MWh for its 700 MW combined trough and tower project: 600 MW of trough, 100 MW of tower with 15 hours of thermal energy storage daily.īase-load CSP tariff in the extremely dry Atacama region of Chile reached below $50/MWh in 2017 auctions. However, CSP can more easily store energy during the night, making it more competitive with dispatchable generators and baseload plants. In 2017, CSP represented less than 2% of worldwide installed capacity of solar electricity plants. While solar PV experienced huge growth in recent years due to falling prices, solar CSP growth has been slow due to technical difficulties and high prices. ĬSP is often compared to photovoltaic solar (PV) since they both use solar energy. Dispatchable renewable energy is particularly valuable in places where there is already a high penetration of photovoltaics (PV), such as California, because demand for electric power peaks near sunset just as PV capacity ramps down (a phenomenon referred to as duck curve). This makes CSP a dispatchable form of solar. A CSP plant can incorporate thermal energy storage, which stores energy either in the form of sensible heat or as latent heat (for example, using molten salt), which enables these plants to continue to generate electricity whenever it is needed, day or night. Comparison between CSP and other electricity sources Īs a thermal energy generating power station, CSP has more in common with thermal power stations such as coal, gas, or geothermal. ![]() The data includes comprehensive details such as capacity, type of power block components, number of thermal energy storage hours, and turbine sizes. The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) maintains a full database of the current state of all CSP plants globally, whether under construction, shut down, or operating. As of 2023, with the inclusion of three new CSP projects in construction in China and in Dubai in the UAE, the total is now 7.5 GW. Īs of 2021, global installed capacity of concentrated solar power stood at 6.8 GW. Electricity is generated when the concentrated light is converted to heat ( solar thermal energy), which drives a heat engine (usually a steam turbine) connected to an electrical power generator or powers a thermochemical reaction. The three towers of the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility Part of the 354 MW SEGS solar complex in northern San Bernardino County, California Bird's eye view of Khi Solar One, South AfricaĬoncentrated solar power ( CSP, also known as concentrating solar power, concentrated solar thermal) systems generate solar power by using mirrors or lenses to concentrate a large area of sunlight into a receiver. "People who have EVs are early adopters, they're your rooftop solar people from 20 years ago, so you really want to try to encourage them and remove barriers for them to use batteries in the vehicle to leapfrog home batteries," he said.Not to be confused with concentrator photovoltaics.Ī solar power tower at Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project concentrating light via 10,000 mirrored heliostats spanning thirteen million sq ft (1.21 km 2). The other thing Mr Maywood suggested governments could do was to look at ways to support the use of electric vehicles as home batteries through the use of bi-directional charging – whereby the power stored in an EV battery could be fed back into households or the grid. "You could ask people to reduce loads and be given an incentive to do that." Powering homes from an EV ![]() " the government could look at, especially in the transition, because the transition is actually quite a fragile time, would be to reduce power using a combination of smart meters, smartphones and SMS messaging. He said encouraging people to make small changes in their use could make a huge difference. "There really needs to be a lot more education done with the public about energy efficiency, time-of-use charge, and demand side management, which has a very big role in a future smart grid." ![]()
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