Fraunhofer-Chile finds PV-CSP combo has better LCOE than gas
Fraunhofer-Chile finds a solar combo (PV-CSP hybrid) generates the same flexible energy as gas, at lower LCOE
CSP News & Analysis
Solar energy record: Mongolian CSP generated round the clock
Solar energy record – 12 days, 24 hours a day In a solar energy record for round-the-clock power generation, Mongolia’s Wulate 100MW trough CSP project ran continuously for 12 days, generating pure solar energy without batteries; due to the thermal energy storage in CSP. (How Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) works). In a CSP plant, mirrors […]
SolarSteam wins recognition for Canadian climate tech
SolarSteam was recently picked by Foresight Canada as one of the country’s most investable clean tech companies. The start-up uses concentrating solar thermal to produce hot water and steam for use by industrial and institutional clients that need to meet an initial 20% to 30% green energy target by 2030. “One of our recognitions was […]
Consortium to demonstrate nitrogen for fertilizer from biosolids using solar thermal
Next year Solar Dynamics will demo a pilot project with solar thermal energy to dry biosolids to extract nitrogen to make fertilizer pellets
Innovation in its volumetric absorber takes OVR efficiency to 90%
With innovation in its core component – the volumetric absorber – the Open Volumetric Receiver (OVR) can reach 90% efficiency and beyond
Sodium heat transfer to Magnesia gets storage test
Liquid sodium heat transfer with magnesia thermal storage is ideally suited to high-temperature energy needs in industrial processes
Denmark’s solar district heat leadership due to great policies
In Denmark, financing green district heat was not left to the whims of the market.
DLR finds CST is the Goldilocks renewable to decarbonize German industry
An assessment of the cost/benefit of each green heat technology is timely, as countries that were most heavily dependent on Russian gas must rapidly decarbonize heavy industry as gas supplies dwindle from over 40% to under 10% and rise in price from 20 to 140 euros per MWh. At the plenary of the 2022 SolarPACES […]
China’s 2050 power could be Zero Carbon for under 1% of GDP: study
The average annual additional costs are ~0.62% of China’s GDP in 2020.
At SolarPACES 2022, Heliogen talks up solar heat efficiency for mines
“Our heliostat software works like human bodies work. We have eyes and eyes allow us to put our fingers in a very exact place with feedback.”
The business case for storing energy thermally in former coal plants
Compared to other energy storage technologies, thermal energy storage has a huge advantage. It can be dropped-in to repurpose existing coal power plants by simply replacing the fuel, coal, with thermal energy storage to be charged with excess renewable energy from the grid, and discharged using nearly all of the components of the original […]
BA student devises algorithm to optimize Tower CSP preheating strategy
Much of the research covered at SolarPACES in concentrated solar power (CSP) is advanced by international post-docs and professors, but as the need for climate solutions advances, it is drawing the attention of younger researchers with STEM backgrounds in mathematics, physics and chemistry. During her BA in Germany, Isabell Reisch chose to create an algorithm […]
How hot solar aviation fuel (thermochemistry heated by solar mirrors) took off
A “hot solar” tower fuel plant for thermochemical aviation fuel from H2O + CO2 is finally getting news coverage. What was your breakthrough?
On-Sun Test of Novel Solar Combined-Cycle Finds…
A novel solar open air receiver is paired with a Brayton combined cycle power plant, combining these two technologies for the first time
Vast Solar to grow Port Augusta CSP to 150 MW at old SolarReserve site
When SolarReserve proposed a 150 MW tower Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) power plant for Port Augusta, the firm was fresh off completing Crescent Dunes, the world’s first attempt at utility scale tower CSP with storage. The startup was unable to get funding to build the Port Augusta project, but it was fully developed: SolarReserve had […]
China Announces Another 1.3 GW of CSP with 12,000 MWh of Thermal Storage
In January this year, three of China’s provinces; Gansu, Qinghai and Jilin, already announced a combined total of 1.1 GW of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) projects for completion by 2024. These are already hiring EPCs and breaking ground. Now the province of Xinjiang has announced an additional 1.3 GW of CSP on its own, which […]
Paper Shows How Dispatchable CSP Can Solve the EU Gas Crisis
Replacing flexible gas before baseload coal is the EU’s new focus. This makes the case for the dispatchable solar; CSP much stronger.
Bill Gates-funded startup Rondo turns Solar or Wind into Heat
Thermal energy storage is cheap but it’s expensive turning heat back into electricity. Rondo Energy instead proposes to sell the heat.
Will the US Demo Long-duration Energy Storage in Time?
In a new study from Sandia National Laboratories; The Value of Long-Duration Energy Storage: Policy and Perception, researchers have published details regarding policies pertaining to long-duration energy storage (LDES), including feedback from around 500 stakeholders. Respondents included representatives from utilities, governments, industry, academia, non-profits, and national labs. While for now, batteries are sufficient, the need […]
Mining Tech shows How Particle CSP can Hoist Tons of Hot Sand
At any one time, almost 3 tons of hot sand would be in free fall for about 5 seconds hitting the pile beneath at 60 meters a second
CEMEX and Synhelion ace the First “Hot Solar” Cement Trial
By the middle of the 21st century the global energy system will hopefully be very different, with clean energy, clean fuels and clean heat supporting a highly decarbonized future. It will require so many changes in how we have done these things so far, that we can barely imagine such a different world today. One […]
How China’s Cosin Solar Solved Some Tower CSP Challenges
Known then as Supcon Solar, Cosin Solar developed two tower projects in China’s pilot CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) program; as technology and core equipment provider on PowerChina Gonghe 50MW tower CSP, and developing the Supcon Delingha 50MW tower CSP. These were two of the five tower CSP demonstration projects that succeeded in China’s pilot program. […]
How Did Cosin Solar Tower CSP Reach Projected Performance So Fast?
Cosin Solar (previously Supcon Solar) seemed to burst on the global Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) scene as a fully fledged Chinese CSP firm. Among China’s pilot projects, the Supcon Delingha 50 MW tower CSP with 7 hours of storage in Qinghai Province was among the few to succeed in China’s pilot program. The project reached […]
Researchers in Australia Investigate Open Vortex Solar Receiver for Thermochemistry at 1000°C
Alumina calcination is one industrial process that could be decarbonized using a 1000°C “hot solar” process
NREL Results Support Cheap Long Duration Energy Storage in Hot Sand
There aren’t many novel clean energy technologies that could also directly remove fossil energy plants. The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has created one. Long duration storage at grid scale is crucial to meeting climate targets. Solar PV and wind have the momentum to be a big part of the new energy economy, but […]
Namibia to De-Risk CSP with Permitted Siting and BOOT Finance
Namibia to follow Moroccan clean energy policy to cut CSP developer risk
World’s Largest Energy Firm to Build Three Chinese CSP Projects
The largest clean energy investor and developer in the world built the Three Gorges Dam China Three Gorges Renewables – the developer and builder of the 22.5 GW Three Gorges Dam in China – will develop three of China’s planned new 100 MW Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) tower projects, two in China’s sunny Qinghai province, […]
China’s Big State-Owned Firms Begin New CSP for 2024
Could giant coal and nuclear developers build CSP? In China, yes
Volateq Brings Drone Monitoring Subscriptions for Trough Solar Thermal Energy
Drone monitoring of solar fields is already established for photovoltaic solar. Now a new DLR spinoff – Volateq.de brings drone technology to the very different challenges of monitoring solar field performance, for concentrated solar power (CSP). “There’s a lot of lot of stuff that can go wrong in a CSP plant, components that can fail, […]
New Sulfur-Based Solar Reactor Makes Cheap Green Hydrogen for Copper Mines
By making solar hydrogen as an industrial service for copper mining the scale is established for mass production
Absolicon Investigates Wastewater Sludge Drying with 140°C Solar Heat
Yet another use for industrial solar heat – drying wastewater sludge – attracts study at six-minute solar collector maker Absolicon
Hot Solar Biomass Gasifier Makes Clean Hydrogen-Rich Syngas
Biomass gasification using steam and oxygen is an already mature technology for extracting hydrogen, which requires heat at above 700°C. To generate the heat for gasification, traditionally, some of the biomass itself is burnt. But this combustion emits several greenhouse gases, which can be quite high, depending on the carbon and hydrogen content of the […]
Advance Hot Solar Fuels with “Spillover” Policies
A pair of policy researchers at Potsdam University’s Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Germany have a suggestion for policy to advance high temperature Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) technologies. Today’s commercially operating Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is run at temperatures used in thermal electricity production and mid temperature industrial processes; 400°C to 600°C. But policy […]
The Economics of Running CSP as a Capacity Resource in the 100% Renewable Future
A new paper to be published in the journal Energy Conversion and Management: X: Using Concentrating-Solar-Power Plants as Economic Carbon-Free Capacity Resources – develops an approach to assessing the capacity contribution from CSP plants with thermal energy storage in a future Southwestern US grid once there is a very high level of other renewables like […]
Why Likana’s 24-Hour Solar Bid under $34/MWh Lost in Chile
At the annual SolarPACES Conference (held virtually for the second year) Cerro Dominador’s CEO Fernando Gonzalez answered questions from the international network of concentrated solar power (CSP) researchers and developers attending about exactly what happened in the recent Chilean energy auctions with the record-low bid for CSP at under $34/MWh. How Cerro Dominador bid a […]
Have Heliostat Cost Cuts Helped Likana Bid CSP Under 4 Cents?
Have advances in heliostat mirror solar fields enabled record low prices in Morocco and Dubai and low bids like for Likana in Chile?
Why Lunar Engineering is an Exciting R&D Field for the “Hot Solar”
Out-of-this-world engineering challenges of manufacturing on the Moon hold promise for Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST)
New Strategies Needed to Sell Solar Heat for Mining
Direct solar heat – Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) – is a potential renewable resource for replacing heat from burning fossil fuels for industries like mining, as its technologies generate heat directly from sunlight at anywhere from 150°C to 1500°C. But lack of information on both sides stands in the way of CST being used for […]
Auto Turbocharger to Power Solar-Heated Air for Industrial Drying
Turbochargers were first used to amplify fossil fuel efficiency. Now they could turbocharge solar energy for 100% renewable industrial heat
Can a new kind of CSP be a game changer?
High temperature CSP with very long duration storage in Bauxite particles can top off the 100% renewable grid says Sandia lead solar researcher Cliff Ho
A Nanotech Cermet Coating is Just One of Many Gen3 CSP Innovations
Innovating new energy technologies is more akin to making a movie with a cast and crew of thousands than the stereotype of the one lone inventor in a garage coming up with the whole thing alone. An example is the US Department of Energy grant to try three different pathways to reduce the cost of […]
Beam-Down Demos First Direct Solar Storage at 1/2 MWh Scale
What if the molten salts in the thermal energy storage tank could simply be heated directly by concentrated solar energy?
Synhelion and Top Hydrogen Firm Advance Solar Hydrogen
The ETH spin-off Synhelion is working on commercializing its very high-temperature solar thermochemical fuels (like jet fuel and hydrogen) and has already formed partnerships with several larger firms making cement or aviation fuel to advance step by step towards its goal of 100% carbon neutral fuels by 2030. The company’s latest collaboration is with Wood, […]
How a Bank Resurrected SolarReserve’s Redstone CSP with ACWA Power
SolarPACES interviewed Bernard Geldenhuys, the Senior Transactor in the Power and Infrastructure team at Investec Bank, a lender with 8,300 employees that has been closely involved in the 100 MW Redstone solar power tower since 2018, when its delayed PPA was signed with Eskom, as the first commercial bank to support the transaction, providing senior […]
The Fastest Route to Commercialize Solar Hydrogen – is through Australian Copper Mines?
By making solar hydrogen as an industrial service for copper mining, the scale is established for mass production
How a DOE Solar Desalination Award Detoured an Oil Industry Startup’s Plan
Ten years as a patent attorney with Exxon Mobil initially predisposed Gary Katz to see purification of “produced water” at oil wells as the market for the off-grid desalination startup he founded and bootstrapped in 2016, aiming to use the industry’s own wasted gas it flares onsite. “We realized there was a big need to […]
100 GWh of Long Duration Energy Storage from MIT
A very large-scale long duration energy storage (LDES) idea from MIT envisages a 1 kilometer-long, 60 meter-wide lidded central storage container of rocks sunk 20 meters down into the ground – about the size of 10 football fields if they were laid end to end. The idea is that it could store energy from up […]
For 100% Renewables, DOE Speeds-up Storage Policy
DOE workshops educate regulators on long duration energy storage (LDES) A Federal energy project funded through the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electricity has initiated workshops designed to help state utility regulators determine best practices in policies to enable carbon-free energy storage technologies and, in particular, long duration energy storage, as renewable energy […]
Could a Perovskite make Cheaper Solar Hydrogen?
A perovskite may be more cost-effective than ceria for solar-driven thermochemical hydrogen production, a new paper suggests. One perovskite formulation that works at a slightly lower temperature than ceria is explored by Xin Qian in the paper Outstanding Properties and Performance of CaTi0.5Mn0.5O3–d for Solar-Driven Thermochemical Hydrogen Production in research funded by the US Department of […]
Aalborg CSP to Retrofit Coal Plants into Thermal Energy Storage
Researchers at DLR, and NREL, and the Bill Gates-funded start-up Malta have been investigating converting coal plants into grid-scale thermal energy storage for curtailed intermittent renewable energy, as low-cost heat “batteries.” (Thermal energy storage was originally developed as storage for Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), but it can alternatively be deployed “standalone” to store energy for […]
MIT Proposes PV to Discharge Energy from 2,400°C Silicon Thermal Storage
The MIT team estimates their thermal “battery” designed for long duration – 100 hours or more – would be half the cost of today’s cheapest grid-scale energy storage; pumped hydro. A very intriguing idea for long-duration gigawatt-scale grid thermal energy storage proposes to store renewable electricity from the grid by charging a “battery” of molten […]
First-of-its-Kind Experiment with Liquid Metals in Thermocline Energy Storage at Karlsruhe
One of the ways to cut costs in thermal energy storage, whether standalone or as part of tower Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is to use heat transfer fluids able to reach higher temperatures, and with a wider working range between hot and cold than today’s molten salts with their working range between “cold” at 290°C […]
HelioHeat Commercializes the DLR 1000°C Solar Receiver CentRec®
HelioHeat’s 1,000°C heat at just 1 Cent/kWh potentially ends the use of fossil energy for the production of steel, cement, food and chemicals
TEXEL Explores US Market for 2-Cent Thermal Energy Storage in Metal Hydrides
Research – and deployment – of low cost and sustainable energy storage technologies are crucial to the long term survival of humans
To Make Green Ammonia, US Researchers Design a Novel Solar Process
As a vital component of fertilizers, ammonia (NH3) is the second most-produced industrial chemical in the world. Annual production is around 180 million metric tons and almost 90% of this production goes to meet the global demand for agricultural production. Ammonia is also increasingly seen as a potential green fuel for power production and […]
CEMEX and Synhelion to Demo Zero CO2 Cement
Synhelion will produce concentrated solar heat at 1500°C for the cement plant and receive highly concentrated CO2 to produce synthetic fuels
In South Africa and Spain, CSP is Meeting or Exceeding Projected Operation Targets
South Africa’s Bokpoort performance has been “reliably excellent” SolarPACES spoke with Nandu Bhula who has been with the team responsible for the success of ACWA Power’s 50 MW Bokpoort trough Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plant in South Africa since the start, first as CEO while the project was being built, and currently as Chairman of […]
Aalborg CSP Cuts Tubing Costs up to 42% with an Asymmetric Receiver
“With the asymmetry of flux levels from the solar field; why not make the receiver also asymmetric to fit better with that,” she explained.
At the SolarPACES Conference, Heliogen Introduces Solar Heat at 1 cent/kWh
Solar PV for electricity is great, but the world needs solar fuels too, fuel for planes, fuel for ships and fuel for steel and cement.
Xavier Lara on How Spain’s Q4 Auction Can Achieve the 5 GW of CSP it Wants
What are the policies that make it possible to actually meet a renewable energy target? Regulators can’t simply decree it happens
Where Very Hot Solar Thermochemistry Research is Today: What’s Needed Next
A state of the art assessment of day or night solar thermochemistry at very high temperatures 1,000ºC to 2,000ºC
Spanish Start-up Innovates Solar Steam Modules for Industries
Solatom’s Fresnel solar module is shipped ready to go and connected onsite as a turn-key design to generate steam or high pressure hot water
Could Congress Commission a Government Agency Like WAPA to Build CSP?
When Bernie Sanders proposed building publicly owned renewables it was dismissed as pie in the sky. But a US agency once did exactly that
Australian Researchers Assess the Commercial Viability of Solar Alumina Calcining
Commercializing alumina refining using solar heat Approximately 27% of Australia’s industrial carbon emissions come from alumina refineries, in which fossil fuels are burned to heat the processes. But concentrated solar thermal (CST) could provide up to half of the heat needed. Australian researchers have for the first time demonstrated a novel solar reactor for calcining […]
Promising Test Results for Molten Salts in Trough CSP
What if the more bankable trough technology could run on molten salt, like the more efficient tower CSP? Wouldn’t that leverage the best of each technology?
Industry Shares its Experience to Advance Next Generation CSP
Engineers generally tend to be solutions-oriented, and engineers in Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) are no different. A history of making things better than they were is why we now have advanced technologies. As Hal Harvey, founder of Energy Innovation told the NYT opinion columnist Tom Friedman: “A prime difference between the Enlightenment and the Dark […]
Which is the Most Efficient Way to Make Solar Fuels from Methane?
The research team found that a redox process produced higher solar-to-fuel efficiency than steam or dry solar methane reforming with a metal alloy catalyst
Making Solar Hydrogen with a Side of Carbon Nanotubes
Two teams of solar researchers have developed a novel solar reactor and thermochemical process for making solar hydrogen that can generate in addition carbon black and graphite as well as carbon nanotubes. Working over a six-year period, the teams first developed the specific solar reactor, and then subsequently, the thermochemistry for the (patent pending) novel […]
Morocco Pioneers PV with Thermal Storage at 800 MW Midelt CSP Project
Colocating PV and CSP to share the CSP thermal storage could be widely applicable as energy grids become more saturated with renewables
How Much Land Would Solar Thermochemistry Need to make All Our Aviation Fuel?
If one “solar refinery” manufactured all the aviation fuel needed for the entire world from CO2+H2O captured from air using solar energy – all in just one site, the solar field would stretch for example, from Paraburdoo to Capricorn in the Western Australian desert
Fred Morse: Go from Lowest Cost to Best Fit for a 100% Carbon Free Grid
CSP+TES match a 100% clean grid best fit needs: flexibility, reliability, dispatchability, durability but utilities don’t know how to procure them
At Synhelion, Solar Jet Fuels Get Ready for Take-off
A Swiss startup is working on commercializing two routes to solar jet fuel – to market first by 2022, and by 2030, from direct air capture of CO2 and H2O
Developers and Utilities Mull Solar Storage for a 100% Clean Energy Southwest
As electricity grids include more intermittent renewables to meet 100% clean energy goals – utilities look beyond batteries to CSP+TES
A New Way to Dry Cool Solar Thermal Power Plants – with Underground Air
A completely new way to dry cool solar thermal power plants, inspired by commercially available underground heat pumps used to cool buildings
Clean Tech Investment Challenge in Commercializing Innovations like HELIOtube
HELIOVIS has been running a demo plant in Spain for two years demonstrating their novel low-cost blow-up plastic tube solar collector for CSP. The small startup is fighting hard to get the industry-scale financial backing needed to introduce the technology and to make commercial sales. https://www.solarpaces.org/how-csp-works/ “We developed a solar collector that replaces the conventional […]
Irrigation Water Can First be Used to Cool a Solar Thermal Power Project
Wet cooling of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants would be preferable if there was plenty of available water, because it promotes greater thermal efficiency. However, most CSP tends to be built in very arid regions, and so for environmental reasons, developers increasingly get these solar thermal power projects permitted only by planning less-efficient dry cooling. […]
“Star” Receiver Could Cut Tower CSP Cost 11%
A star shape allows for double sided flux exposure in the receiver, a way to allow for increased flux density limits in standard tower CSP
Brightsource Innovates a Solar-cured Coating for DEWA Tower CSP
Testing laboratories in Germany, France and Spain have confirmed the effectiveness of a new high-performance (97% absorbance) optical coating developed by Brightsource Energy, that can be “solar-cured” directly atop the receiver of tower CSP, like Brightsource is building as part of the ACWA Power 700 MW DEWA CSP project in the UAE for the Dubai […]
A Novel CSP Heliostat Goes from Lab to Market in Just 5 Years
The innovative pentagonal Stellio heliostat has gone from lab to commercial deployment in China’s Hami CSP project in record time
NREL Awarded $2.8 Million to Develop a Long-Duration Thermal Energy Storage Technology
Surplus solar or wind to heat thermal storage would be a win-win, meeting changing market needs to store renewables – while transitioning fossil energy
Rebirth of SolarReserve’s 450 MW Likana Brings CSP Supply Chain Hope for Chile
This week, the Cerro Dominador Group/EIG Global Energy Partners bought the Likana Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) project from US-based SolarReserve, which was unable to complete the project. SolarReserve had already developed Likana by accomplishing the preliminary work of siting and monitoring local DNI and taking it through Chile’s environmental permitting process, but was unable to […]
Sodium-based Vast Solar Combines the Best of Trough & Tower CSP to Win our Innovation Award
At the 2019 SolarPACES Conference, Vast Solar took the SolarPACES Technical Innovation Award for their use of high temperature sodium-based HTF in tower CSP, presented in their paper: Vast Solar: improving performance and reducing cost and risk using high temperature modular arrays and sodium heat transfer fluid. Their design appears like a small modular tower […]
Japan and Australia Test Solar Hydrogen Component
For countries such as Japan or South Korea with poor DNI and little space for wind and solar, the value of hydrogen is that it can be made overseas with renewable energy, then stored and shipped, and used to produce electricity, heat, or propulsion. This way, regardless of local solar or wind resource, any economy […]
MENA Region Industries Could Heat for Less with Solar
Which Middle East and North Africa (MENA) nations could decarbonize industrial heat with Concentrated Solar Heat (CSH) most cost-effectively? World Bank energy consultant Elena Cuadros and Fraunhofer’s Pedro Horta supplied very detailed calculations showing where CSH could be substituted at a lower cost than fossil fuels by comparing CSH costs to specific fossil fuel costs currently […]
Q&A: How Risk Mitigation Finance Can Cut CSP Costs
Cutting risk in financing will be the next key to further cut CSP costs, according to the author of Non-recourse project financing for concentrated solar thermal power published in the journal Utilities Policy. Dr. Steven Geroe teaches Energy and Environmental Law and Contract Law at Melbourne’s La Trobe Law School, and became interested in China’s […]
Novel CSP Design Combines the Solar Receiver with Thermal Energy Storage
Researchers propose combining a solar receiver with energy storage within one unit on the ground, by using a beam-down optical reflecting system
Add Hydrogen Combustion to a Solar Reactor for Carbon-Free Mining and Mineral Processing
Iron, nickel, alumina and copper mining processes are among the industrial processes that require heat at between 700°C and 1000°C. The advanced concentrated solar thermal (CST)reactors being developed by researchers globally can attain temperatures this high (and higher, up to 1500°C). But CEOs in mining and mineral processing industries are more familiar with fuel combustion […]
Could China’s Global Grid Idea Help Grow CSP?
China has an ambitious proposal for a global HVDC grid to transfer renewable energy throughout the world. Interconnected regional electricity networks would be connected to a backbone of HVDC lines that would become a globe-spanning super grid by 2050. Advancing the idea is China’s Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization (GEIDO). The concept depends on […]
A Solar Process Like Gas Reforming Makes Green Hydrogen Cheaper
A preliminary study of the average cost of a novel process for producing solar hydrogen in several locations in Australia finds it could come close to the US DOE renewable hydrogen target of $3 per kilogram. The way that hydrogen is reformed from natural gas is a well-established, low-cost process. But greenhouse gases are emitted […]
Designing Solar Furnaces to Make Biochars without Air Pollution
Charcoal might seem like a very low tech product, but lithium batteries, water filtration and super-capacitors are among its high tech end uses, and the requirements for these different purposes are actually very exacting. Solar researchers in Mexico are investigating the various temperatures and the rate of heat needed to make different biochars from agricultural […]
Start-Up VC Invests in Beam-Down Concentrator for Solar Fuel
“Our “back of the envelop” communication with researchers is that $3 per gallon of gasoline equivalent (GGE) per kilogram of hydrogen could be obtainable,” said Al Maaitah.
Morocco Breaks New Record with 800 MW Midelt 1 CSP-PV at 7 Cents
Morocco’s 800 MW CSP-PV Noor Midelt breaks last year’s auction price record of 7.3 cents set by DEWA in the UAE, with winning bid at USD 7 cents/kWh The Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy (MASEN) has announced that the consortium of EDF Renewables, Masdar, and Green of Africa – a joint venture between three Moroccan […]
VC-Funded Thermal “Battery” is Based on CSP Molten Salt Energy Storage
Standalone thermal storage: “Incredibly cheap grid-scale storage with a very long calendar life” The new Venture Capital (VC) firm Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) only invests in technologies they vet as both “scientifically feasible at scale” and with the potential to reduce “at least half a gigaton of greenhouse gases every year.” Along with Alfa Laval […]
Make Carnot Batteries with Molten Salt Thermal Energy Storage in ex-Coal Plants
Retiring coal power plants could see a new life serving the green economy by storing renewable energy as thermal batteries, delivering the stored energy back to the grid using the former coal plant’s existing power blocks and grid connections. Leveraging the low cost of the molten salt thermal energy storage used in CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) […]
Study of Chile’s CSP Potential for Domestic Manufacturing
A study commissioned by the Chilean government and presented before the SolarPACES Conference in Morocco makes data available to potential participants in a Chilean CSP industry. The study, Local Content in CSP:CST Projects- Assessment of the Chilean Industry is designed to put together useful information for both international CSP developers bidding in auctions and local […]
Shouhang and EDF to Test s-CO2 Cycle in Concentrated Solar Power
China could be the first to deploy s-CO2 in CSP The world’s initial Concentrated SolarPower (CSP) plants continue to use the legacy steam cycles of conventional thermal plants. But steam cycle is a mature technology with temperature-based efficiency limits, hampering the potential to raise efficiency and lower costs. Consequently, international researchers have investigated a new […]
Australian Researchers Design a Solar Process for Algae-Derived Solar Fuel
Algae is a potential energy feedstock that is synergistic with solar fuels because algae can be grown in salt water on cheap desert land with a good solar resource, and it also contains the chemicals needed for making solar fuels (hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen). Research is ongoing into reducing the cost of farming algae. To […]
Trucks Transport Hot Particles Storing Energy 1 Kilometer for Multi-Tower CSP?
The tower form of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is very young technology. Less than a gigawatt is deployed globally, making it a nascent technology at the “Cambrian explosion” stage; multiple innovations are still being explored to cut costs. (How tower CSP works) A new economic study looks at reducing its Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) […]
Top Steelmaker Tests Thermal Energy Storage in Slag Byproduct to Cut CO2
Thermal energy stored in steel slag could replace fossil fuels used for heat in steel production
China Made Solar PV Cheap – Is CSP Next?
With China in the game, the outlook for the technology has gone from from gloomy to better than ever – however it also carries great risk
Researchers Test Solar to Cut CO2 in Cement Processing
Renewable energy researchers have been looking into how to cut CO2 emissions from processing industrial minerals like cement and lime, as these are responsible for a high share of the global greenhouse gas emissions. For every 10 tons of cement we produce, we release 9 tons of CO2, with much of that through the burning […]
Study Investigates Solar District Cooling Potential for Saudi Arabia
Instead of running air conditioners on fossil-fueled electricity, University of Bergamo researchers Guiseppe Franchini and Antonio Perdichizzi propose an alternative cooling technology; using a thermal form of solar energy to provide solar district cooling in the Saudi Kingdom. Their study of the economics of solar district cooling was published at Energy Conversion and Management, in […]
Can California Really Meet its 100% Clean Energy Target?
California is a global leader in climate policy, and its goal of 100% clean energy by 2045 is now law in the 5th largest economy after China, the US, Japan and Germany. While the state has had a cap and trade program in place since 2013, it has been the simplicity and directness of a […]
How CSP Can Help Remove CO2 from air
A New Paper Describes a Solar Thermal Air Capture of Carbon Dioxide with Amino Acids Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) will play a key role in a decarbonized economy because it can produce heat without adding any carbon emissions. Though for centuries we’ve produced heat for industrial uses by burning a fossil fuel like coal, or […]
Climate Policy that Actually Works: How Morocco is Meeting its Clean Energy Goals
An interview reveals Morocco’s secret: MASEN (the Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy) is actually a renewable energy “one stop shop” – starting with climate policy, through needs assessment, planning, infrastructure development and finally structuring to mobilize project finance.
Can Spain Revive the CSP Industry it Killed?
The time is right to consider what went wrong and what went right with Spain’s previous CSP policy – because an election in June put the renewable-friendly coalition that developed it back in power. Spain’s socialist-led coalition government jumpstarted virtually all the Concentrated Solar Power/CSP deployed in Europe, 2.3 GW, creating a supply chain of Spanish […]
Researchers Seek Best s-CO2 Solar Desalination from Waste Heat
Could a Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) power plant tap the waste heat it produces to desalinate water? Scientists at find that the answer is yes – in a co-generation setup where CSP using a supercritical carbon dioxide (s-CO2) power cycle is combined with thermal desalination – and they go on to figure out the process that […]
How Three Novel Technologies Trialled in the US Will Cut CSP Cost
The DOE announced $72 million in funding of three novel pathways to raising temperature and efficiency to lower costs for three CSP tower technologies
Study: CSP Will Help China Cut Costs of Climate Action
Solar thermal energy turns out to be the key to China meeting its climate commitments. A new study investigates the best combination of renewables for providing the lowest cost to power system operators in two of China’s provinces best suited to scale up renewable energy. China’s power systems operators must invest in renewable energy to […]
What are the Pros and Cons of Longer Solar Contracts?
The first-ever 35-year solar power contract – ACWA Power’s with DEWA in Dubai – had a record-low price, for CSP+storage of just 7.3 cents per kWh. Did a longer contract enable the record low price?
Artificial Vision Enables Solar Field Calibration Overnight
Researchers have developed a prototype for calibrating an entire solar field in a single night, shaving months off the current calibration system for large size Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) tower plants. In tower CSP, an encircling solar field of thousands of heliostats (specialized mirrors) must continuously and precisely reflect concentrated beams from always-moving sunlight onto […]
A Blueprint for 100% Solar Desalination
Freshwater shortages are projected to increase in our hotter and more crowded future. Already,150 countries desalinate seawater, using fossil fuels. But supplying an ever-increasing basic need with non-renewable fuels creates a growing threat, according to Dr. Diego-César Alarcón-Padilla, who heads the Solar Desalination Unit at Plataforma Solar de Almería (PSA) and is Operating Agent of Task […]
Eastern Morocco’s Concentrated Solar Power Potential Assessed
A new paper published at Solar Energy investigates Eastern Morocco’s suitability to host Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) in a multilayered assessment. Dr. Ahmed Alami Merrouni, who heads up research on Meteorology and Solar Materials Degradation at Institut de Recherche en Energie Solaire et Energies Nouvelles (IRESEN), and his team determined which parts of Eastern Morocco […]
Researchers Reduce Intermittency in Solar Thermochemical Hydrogen Production
A new paper, presented at the SolarPACES Annual Conference proposes using ceria particles not only as the redox reactant in hydrogen production, but for also for heat transfer and storage.
Path to a Booming Australian Solar Thermal Energy Market
Industry response suggests an Australian concentrated solar thermal market would be well subscribed A report out from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) this month published responses from industry stakeholders on the viability of a concentrated solar thermal (CST) energy market in Australia: Paving the way for concentrated solar thermal in Australia. Only 5 gigawatts […]
Morocco’s Noor III Solar Tower CSP to Deliver Power by October
Noor III, at 150 MW, the world’s second utility-scale Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) tower with molten salt storage, will deliver power to Morocco’s electricity grid by October, if not sooner. “Noor III receiver installation on tower has been finalized already, so we are ready to continue the commissioning of the plant with the solar field […]
Scientists Test World’s First Solar Fuels Reactor for Night
International solar thermal energy researchers have successfully tested CONTISOL, a solar reactor that runs on air, able to make any solar fuel like hydrogen and to run day or night – because it uses concentrated solar power (CSP) and includes thermal energy storage. The promise of solar fuels is that we could have zero carbon […]
Solar Heat to Make Power + Water for Namibia: Study
Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is suited to regions with good solar resource. CSP+desalination can simultaneously solve related water scarcity. Seawater desalination can be integrated into a solar thermal energy plant using a variety of desalination technologies. Is solar-driven multi-effect distillation a financially feasible solution for water-stressed Namibia? A research study from Stellenbosch University finds that a […]
Particle Receivers to Get First Commercial Trial – in Saudi Arabia
A new solar technology is twice as efficient, cutting the cost of solar thermal energy, by raising operating temperatures to 1,000°C, almost twice the 565°C molten salt temperature in current concentrated solar power (CSP) tower plants. For most innovative research in clean energy, the dreaded “Valley of Death” after lab scale success is the sad […]
Missing Link for Solar Hydrogen is… Ammonia?
Ammonia (NH3) is key to enabling the solar hydrogen (H2) future, says a prominent Australian researcher. Solar fuel could be stored, bottled and shipped globally in ammonia
How solar thermochemistry generates the greenest hydrogen
What part will solar thermochemistry play in building a future hydrogen economy? For an overview, we interviewed a top solar hydrogen expert, Christian Sattler, who holds 18 patents and has authored 158 peer-reviewed papers on the technology. Sattler heads the Department of Solar Chemical Engineering at the Institute of Solar Research at Deutsches Zentrum für […]
Researcher Pioneers Solar to Heat Crucial Steel Component
Mintek pyrometallurgy engineer Lina Hockaday is trying a highly focused solar reactor to replace the fossil energy used as part of the steelmaking process
How Has Spain’s Concentrated Solar Thermal Power Performed?
As prices for Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) with thermal energy storage dropped an astonishing 50% between May and November this year, it seemed that 2017 saw the kind of price breakthrough that could allow CSP to compete with traditional thermal power in supplying dispatchable electricity. CSP is the heat-based form of solar, which generates power […]
GlassPoint Brings Gigantic 850 MWth Solar EOR to California
GlassPoint will build an 850 MW (thermal) solar thermal facility in Bakersfield, generating 12 million barrels of emissions-free steam annually for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) replacing natural gas.
How Synhelion’s solar jet fuel started – an interview in 2017
Thermochemical solar fuel manufacturing would be an energy industry with a life of centuries, rather than decades. The feedstock of sunlight, carbon dioxide and water is essentially unlimited. Scientists with the SOLAR-JET Project have demonstrated the first-ever entire process to make kerosene, the jet fuel used by commercial airlines, using a high-temperature thermal solar reactor […]
All MENA CSP Now 7 Cents or Under Says ACWA Power
ACWA Power’s latest record-low contract signed with DEWA at just over 7 cents per kWh is no outlier, according to CEO Paddy Padmanathan. CSP is a thermal form of solar that typically includes thermal storage in a power block so that it can generate power at any time, not just when the sun shines.
US DOE: CSP Could Provide Needed Flexibility and Reliability to Grid
BY AVI SHULTZ Dr. Avi Shultz is the acting program manager for the United States Department of Energy (DOE) SunShot Initiative Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) team, which supports research, development, and demonstration of solar thermal components and systems that can enable wide-spread deployment of low-cost CSP with thermal energy storage. Every day our power needs […]
Solar Thermal Power Prices have Dropped an Astonishing 50% in Six Months
Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) prices dropped in 2017, from under 10 cents per kWh in May, to under 5 cents by October. CSP is a form of thermal solar energy that can power day or night, because its intrinsic ability to store its energy thermally enables it to dispatch power at any time.(How CSP Thermal […]
Scientist Devises a Solar Reactor to Make Water and Oxygen from Moon Rocks
An aerospace engineer has built a machine to make water and oxygen from the lunar regolith, powered by solar energy. Thorsten Denk’s paper Design and Test of a Concentrated Solar Powered Fluidized Bed Reactor for Ilmenite Reduction was presented at the 23rd Annual SolarPACES Conference in Chile. (Thorsten Denk – Presentation (pdf) Working over a ten year […]
How Solar Peaker Plants Could Replace Gas Peakers
Solar can be designed to run only after dark at a competitive price with a current natural gas peaker plant. Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) can be a night-only dispatchable (D-CSP) plant; with its entire solar energy absorbed by day to be delivered after dark to cover the evening peak load on the grid, according to a study funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE).
Solar Flux; from Bug to Feature
Sandia scientists find the optimal way to mop up surplus solar flux on CSP towers Excess solar flux could be harnessed and used to generate additional electricity at a tower CSP plant, by cladding part of the tower containing the receiver with photovoltaic (PV) panels, according to Sandia scientist Cliff Ho. He found that adding […]
TuNur Night-time Solar Exports to EU for 10 cents – Q&A
Europe already imports energy long-distance: via natural gas pipelines from Russia. TuNur plans round-the-clock solar via HVDC from Tunisia
Sandia Labs R&D Helped SolarReserve hit 6 Cents CSP
Research was key to the low price record of 6 cents for dispatchable solar thermal energy at Port Augusta: SolarReserve According to Kevin Smith, the CEO of California-based SolarReserve; the company that is first to sell CSP at 6 cents/kWh, the record-low CSP price was largely due to their receiver and heliostat research. The 150 MW […]
US DOE Funds Terrafore’s Phase Change Energy Storage Test
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has released funding to the Argonne National Laboratory for a scaled-up round of independent testing of Terrafore Technologies’ innovative encapsulated thermal energy storage in phase change salts, designed to operate in temperatures to greater than 800°C in a single tank that acts as both storage and heat exchanger.
How Port Augusta Got the World’s Cheapest Solar Thermal Power
Most coverage of SolarReserve’s 150 MW Aurora solar thermal power plant in Port Augusta completely overlooked its biggest news: the South Australian Government just bought the world’s cheapest solar thermal energy. Just 6 cents per kilowatt hour. SolarReserve will sell solar thermal energy to the South Australian Government at $75 (AUD) with a guaranteed cap […]
SolarReserve Breaks CSP Price Record with 6 Cent Contract
Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) just reached the US Department of Energy 2020 SunShot goal of 6 cents for dispatchable solar
CSP to be Essential by 2050 …for Germany?
Given Germany’s lack of desert sun, it might seem improbable that thermal solar would be a key component of its low-carbon grid planning under its Energiewende (energy transition). But several papers published in 2016 found that concentrated solar power (CSP) will be essential.
Why Chile Could Lead the World in CSP
With annual solar radiation at 3,500kWh per square meter, akin to what you see in outer space, it is no surprise that Chile is a world leader in solar energy production. The nation is also in a position to lead the world in CSP
Solar EOR a Big Win for GlassPoint
Unlike other CSP developers who leverage the heat of the sun as the “fuel” for a power block that then generates electricity to the grid; GlassPoint’s enclosed troughs are simply employed in the direct production of steam, focusing on what the company sees as an ignored market for heat.
SolarPACES to Optimize Chile’s Clean Energy Grid
Chile will be next to benefit from an analysis; developed in Germany, of optimal clean energy grid options A new computational tool will be used by international researchers at SolarPACES to calculate the best technology mix of generation resources to most cost-effectively cover Chile’s load curve. The modeling tool was initially developed at Aachen University, […]
How an Artist Has Made CSP the “Default” Solar
Images by the award-winning artist Jamey Stillings have become so widely used that it is not uncommon to see news stories about solar energy illustrated by a tower surrounded by mirrors, rather than the much more widely deployed PV.
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