A team of solar researchers in Greece is contributing to the development of a technology to produce bio-crude from mixed wet waste processed onsite in a mobile solar-heated reaction chamber. They have innovated the use of concentrated solar thermal (CST) energy to...
CSP News & Analysis
Over 50% of India’s renewables tender to be concentrated solar thermal
India has carved out an unprecedented percentage to come from concentrated solar thermal technologies in its planned renewables tender this year; over 50%. The news of the tender attracted the world’s key CSP developers and stakeholders to the International Conference...
Over 90% efficient energy storage improved by flowing heat round two pebble layers
An over 90% efficient thermal storage technology from KTH gets further refinements Energy storage will become essential to fully replace fossil fuels for industrial heat and the electric grid. Batteries are a cost-effective solution when electricity is needed as an...
A solar sulphur cycle to make unlimited thermal energy storage
How a breakthrough solar thermochemistry process that uses direct solar heat to cycle between sulphur and sulphuric acid would generate "virtually unlimited" seasonal thermal energy storage Researchers are now refining a groundbreaking long-duration thermal energy...
Solar pyrolysis for recycling lithium-ion batteries aces Proof of Concept
As a new industry, lithium-ion battery recycling with pyrolysis could be heated by concentrated solar energy from the start One of the hurdles for concentrated solar thermal energy to decarbonize heat-based industrial processes is that most of these industries, from...
Two CSP studies quantify a trade-off between solar efficiency and LCOE
CSP solar efficiency is compared against LCOE in multi-unit CSP with s-CO2 Brayton cycle in two recent papers, and efficiency wins
Another standalone thermal energy storage tech – the Heatcube
Why standalone thermal energy storage has heated up It became apparent as CSP was commercialized that the low cost and durability of the thermal energy storage was its key advantage. Thermal energy storage makes it possible to deliver solar around the clock by storing...
India’s next renewables tender carves out 50% for CSP
In the first quarter of 2024, India plans to put out a tender for renewable energy that includes not just a carve-out, but the largest ever, requiring over 50% to be supplied by Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), the thermal form of solar electricity. There is renewed...
3D-printed ceria is a game-changer to increase solar fuel efficiency
In solar reactors for making solar fuels at high temperatures, ceria's behavior when heated makes it state-of-the-art for unlocking the thermochemistry involved. (How solar fuels are made). But its structure lacks “intelligent design.” So a precisely controlled design...
Methane pyrolysis with liquid metals in a bubble column reactor to generate green hydrogen and carbon
Using a bubble column reactor at Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, the Liquid Metal Laboratory team is working on producing hydrogen from methane, the cheapest method, but without CO2 emissions - the problem with the cheapest method. The main product, besides...
CSP desalination siting tool demonstrated in Australia
A team of Australian researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) has combined three tools to assess the economic viability of a hybrid CSP and desalination plant applicable for any region worldwide. “The interesting thing is you can modify this by...
Solar concentration boosted by shape-shifting heliostat glass
By manipulating the shape of heliostats in real time, the optical efficiency of solar fields for tower CSP can be significantly increased, according to a paper presented at the New Mexico SolarPACES Conference: Heliostat with Automatic Shape Adjustment for High...
Australia’s liquid sodium solar receiver to be on show in October
The solar receiver on view at this year’s SolarPACES Conference site tour in October will be the first that many attendees have seen. This solar receiver is designed for very high temperature liquid sodium as its heat transfer fluid up in a solar tower, with a solar...
Australia’s Vast CSP to include green methanol demo for shipping
Why Vast plans to include methanol production in their CSP project Methanol is used to make many chemicals, but what makes producing green methanol most interesting for the future is that the shipping industry, finally having to deal with climate emissions, considers...
What happened with Crescent Dunes?
The Crescent Dunes CSP project in the US was the first of a kind: The first tower CSP with thermal energy storage at full-scale; 110 MW. (Above about 150 MW, the distances of the solar field encircling the tower receiver has optical limits) It was developed by the...
How can Synhelion’s solar receiver achieve such high temperatures?
Synhelion's solar receiver achieves a temperature of 1,500°C and higher. That's unprecedented. Even the Gen3 particle-based solar receiver being pilot-scale tested now at Sandia - and the DLR CentRec receiver licensed to Heliogen - operate at the (relatively!) lower...
Sandia’s green ammonia research matters for a global shipping future
Green ammonia could be made sustainably using solar thermochemistry instead of the way it is made today in the fossil-fueled Haber-Bosch process, which taps fossil energy for the thermochemistry and the heat and the high pressure it requires, while emitting almost...
Three Gorges’ new Chinese CSP project tries a double solar field
One of the new CSP projects Three Gorges Renewables is building is a novel dual-tower design at Guazhou, in Gansu Province
Australian mining to decarbonize with GlassPoint’s solar steam
Ten years ago, GlassPoint CEO Rod MacGregor bucked the typical business plan for solar developers, both PV and CSP (How CSP works): Sign an electricity contract with an electric utility to sell your solar power by the kilowatt-hour for 25 years and try to get...
AELIUS to champion green ammonia for China’s shipping
Xavier Lara’s consultancy AELIUS Energies SLU to champion green ammonia for shipping before an audience of major shipbuilders in Qingdao China
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