RES technologies account for most of the new capacity additions in the last years at world level and this trend will increase exponentially in the near future.
Sooner than later the share of new yearly renewable capacity at world level will be above 95%.
PV and Wind are currently “skimming” the new capacity market in many countries, but STE is – and will continue to be – the necessary choice when long term planning addition of new capacity in sunny countries is done.
STE would be also the preferred choice for policy makers when all the impacts – technical and economical – are duly taken into account.
Planners and Policy Makers should considered the electrical system globally with a long term vision, moving from the current short-sighted COST approach to a full VALUE approach.
Growing is our critical issue in the coming years in order to facilitate the reduction of costs – CAPEX & OPEX – of new STE plants.
Research community must contribute to this urgent cost reduction needs by focussing on those systems that can be scaled up to the 100 MW range and that are fully dispatchable.
LCOE of STE plants is – as of today – much lower than LCOE of PV plants with 6 hours battery storage. And it will continue to be so at least in the next 10 years.
Wherever you hear the simplistic argument that LCOE is much lower for PV than for STE, please raise your hand and say that it is not true, as STE will be always provided with thermal storage.
Ain Beni Mathar Integrated Combined Cycle Thermo-Solar Power Plant
Comparisons have to be made between “apples & apples”.
We must amplify this fact and educate Policy Makers – and the general public – to make them understand that current PV systems and STE plants with storage are two different products with very much different value for the system.
Sooner than later Policy Makers and Planners will realize that it is not possible to continue decommissioning fossil fuel and nuclear plants and substituting them – while saturating the generation fleet – with “fluent” renewable technologies.
Then, STE plant deployment will ramp up. Market volume and fair competition on value bases will make the rest.
Dr. Luis Crespo,
President of ESTELA
President of Protermosolar
