Engineers at Aalborg CSP have developed, designed and optimized an asymmetric solar receiver to pair with a new heliostat from the Spanish firm Tewer Engineering as part of the PHOTON project, which aims to reap more competitive configurations and simplify assembly and commissioning operations for Concentrated Solar Power tower plants [...]
Well before Bill Gross started Idealab (which has launched 150 startups and counting) to “look for big problems in the world, invent technological solutions, then build companies to fix them” he was doodling designs for the solar thermal mirrors that reflect concentrated sunlight onto a solar receiver, instead of attending [...]
Why is Bill Gates backing a CSP company? What is oil major ENI doing with a CSP start-up? Why has Zurich airport agreed to purchase aviation fuel from a CSP company? Why are investors purchasing operating CSP plants? Many investors have written-off CSP in favour of investments PV and wind. [...]
The weighted average LCOE of Concentrated Solar Power plants fell by 47% between 2010 and 2019, from USD 0.346/kWh to USD 0.182/kWh, excluding two much delayed projects that are not representative of today’s optimised technology configuration that were commissioned in 2019. The global weighted-average total installed costs of Concentrating [...]
Average CSP prices to fall by a half as Chile, Dubai projects near completion. The global average cost of new CSP projects is set to plummet in 2020 and 2021, based on auction and power purchase agreement (PPA) data, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) said in its latest [...]
Renewable electricity costs have fallen sharply over the past decade, driven by improving technologies, economies of scale, increasingly competitive supply chains and growing developer experience. Since 2010, utility-scale solar PV power has shown the sharpest cost decline at 82%, followed by concentrating solar power (CSP) at 47%, onshore wind [...]
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) have developed a low cost Solar 'Parabolic Trough Collector' (PTC) system for concentrating solar energy with industrial applications in areas such as desalination, space heating and space cooling, among others. This indigenously designed and developed system was lightweight with high energy efficiency [...]
CSP plants could be built at a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of $76/MWh near the city of Copiapo in northern Chile, according to a report by researchers at Santiago's Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria and the Fraunhofer Chile Research Foundation. The researchers estimated CSP production, capital costs, operational [...]
Concentrated solar power can deliver greater grid stability than photovoltaics, but needs better recognition of its value to be competitive. Concentrated solar power's failure to gain momentum in U.S. markets is a signal that traditional resource valuations may be slowing the energy transition, a February CSP conference made clear. CSP, [...]
Soon to hit the market, auto-calibrating heliostat systems will cut capex, accelerate construction times and expand siting potential, suppliers told New Energy Update. As CSP developers drive for lower costs, heliostat performance has become a key area of research. Heliostats can represent half of the capital costs of a [...]
Concentrating Solar Power costs have already plummeted by 47% compared to 2010. It is likely that costs will continue their downward trajectory thanks to economies of scale, deployment in locations with better solar resources and lower costs of capital, according to a study by the International Renewable Energy Agency [...]
Cutting risk in financing will be the next key to further cut Concentrated Solar Power (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 [...]
A new ceramic particle Concentrated Solar Power receiver soon to be tested in the U.S. could lower the cost of energy by up to 20% and accelerate industrial heat deployment through particle transport innovations, Reiner Buck, Head of Solar Tower Systems at German Aerospace Centre (DLR), told New Energy Update. [...]
