Technical background

Technology

In 2005, Concentrated Solar Power generated a mere 0.025% of global electricity. However, the CSP sector is growing quickly, with thousands of MW under construction/planning in many parts of the world including Europe, the US, North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Egypt) and the Middle-East (Israel). Also China, Australia, Mexico and India have recently started to show interest in CSP.

European industries in solar technologies, almost abs ent15 years ago, are nowadays world leaders and are expanding their activities overseas to both industrialised as well as developing countries.

In Spain (Andalusia) a first commercial-scale CSP project, consisting of an 11MW solar tower (PS10), was demonstrated and built with funding from FP5. Moreover several CSP installations have been created or are under construction in Spain. These CSP plants together are estimated to be equivalent to 3GW of installed capacity, corresponding to 11 TWh of annual energy production.

CSP installations will be present also in other countries in Southern Europe, including Portugal, Italy, Greece, Malta and Cyprus, bringing the total installed capacity up to 4GW in the year 2012.

 

• Read more about the future prospects of the CSP technology.

Future prospects

Due to research, innovation, technological improvements and mass production on one side, and to the price increase of conventional energy sources on the other side, Concentrated Solar Power could become competitive by 2015. CSP technologies today have a cost somewhere between those of Photovoltaics and wind (1W=4EUR). Nevertheless, costs are decreasing as market expands and R&D efforts improve performance.

Under the Solar European Industrial Initiative as established by the SET Plan, the aim is to scale-up the most promising European solar technologies from the R&D level to pre-commercial feasibility demonstration in the multi-MW range (so-called "light-house" projects). Some of these installations may be located in North-African Mediterranean Partner Countries. Since fresh water availability is an increasing problem in North Africa, as well as southern Europe, some of the solar installations could be dedicated to a combination of electricity production and water desalination.

According to ESTELA, the European association of the solar thermal electricity industry, there will be more than 400 MW connected to the grid by 2010, and the potential for European Mediterranean countries is estimated at 30.000 MW that could contribute, provided that the necessary measures are being taken. A much larger contribution could be obtained when the potential of the Northern Africa countries is developed. The annual electricity production could reach 85TWh per year, covering 2% of the EU electricity consumption in 2020. For 2030, the installed capacity is estimated to double and could climb up to the threshold of 60 GW for an equivalent of annual energy production of 170 TWh.

Hurdles to be overcome by research

Increasing the deployment of CSP technologies will require the removal of technical barriers. Improvements are needed in order to increase the grid flexibility and enhance the storage technologies.

Current electricity transmission and distribution systems have been designed and developed to manage more traditional generation technologies and are not ideal for CSP plants. Moreover, the fact that sunshine is intermittent poses a challenge in terms of efficient storage of surplus of energy.

Thermal storage and hybrid operation (using biomass or fossil fuel as an alternative heat source) need to be further explored and improved. In the same way, further research of new applications, like water desalination and hydrogen production, needs to be continued and strengthened.

Additional critical aspects to be addressed are land use (which must become as efficient as possible, at least in Europe), materials consumption (which needs to be contained) and conversion efficiency (which should be further raised).

Nevertheless, removing technical barriers won't be sufficient for reaching the ambitious objectives embraced by the CSP sector for 2020. Ad hoc financial instruments such as long-term and stable feed-in tariffs should be encouraged and the awareness of the potential of the solar sector has to be reinforced.