Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is the form of solar that can store the sun’s energy thermally for on-demand electricity generation. CSP is clean energy, like solar PV or wind, but the back end or the power block works like any thermal energy power station (coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants are thermal energy power stations). The difference is that instead of digging up a finite fuel from the earth, CSP harvests sunlight to make thermal energy.
Three US-based Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) startups are now making the leap to gigawatt-scale CSP projects at the global level. Two — SolarReserve and BrightSource Energy — were recipients of Department of Energy federal support through the Loan Guarantee Program and subsequent ARPA-E awards for R&D that helped them refine their innovative technologies. The third, Glasspoint Solar, took a different approach.
The Chinese government has announced a pilot program to jumpstart dispatchable solar in a 20-project Commercial Demonstration Pilot Program for a total of over a gigawatt. Out of 109 applications, BrightSource Energy’s 135 MW Delingha tower was one of only 20 projects chosen for the pilot program. The National Energy Agency (NEA) program … [continued]
SolarReserve has now proposed a total of six CSP projects near Port Augusta in South Australia that would be clones of its 110 MW Crescent Dunes project in Tonopah, Nevada. SolarReserve’s dispatchable solar can be switched on day or night because it incorporates thermal energy storage. I spoke with SolarReserve CEO Kevin Smith, who was … [continued]
A new bill has been introduced in the US Senate and House of Representatives that could boost energy storage markets. The US Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act is a bill which focuses on tax credits for both residential and business systems. Martin Heinrich, a Democratic New Mexican Senator, put … [continued]
SolarReserve’s breakthrough Crescent Dunes solar tower with thermal storage has successfully generated electricity at its full 110 MW capacity. With this milestone achieved, the CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) project has now passed the necessary test to begin full commercial operation under its 25-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with NV Energy to … [continued]
Electricity generated by the first 160-megawatt portion of the 580-megawatt Ouarzazate CSP plant will be added to the grid in Morocco beginning in December. The World Bank and the European Investment Bank have provided about $9 billion in loans for the huge project. ACWA Power was behind the fundraising and it might be … [continued]
Can we really generate most of our power from renewables in a few decades? In a word, yes. But to understand further, we must understand how we produce and distribute power today. Part of the difficulty lies in the concepts we use to understand the electrical power system. A simple … [continued]
Abengoa makes the case for concentrating solar power systems with energy storage for peaker plants to compete with gas turbines, and for baseload, too.
SolarReserve’s baseload solar 260 MW Copiapó project bids into the grid in April, having just cleared Chile’s permitting with a Resolución de Calificación Ambiental. With a price expected to be well under 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, the pioneering 24-hour solar project in Chile’s Atacama desert can compete on price against other baseload generation. Much … [continued]
