Concentrated solar thermal in China’s 15th Five-Year Plan

An interview with Lauri Myllyvirta, co-founder and lead analyst of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, an independent research organization headquartered in Finland with staff across Europe and Asia, about China’s 15th Five-Year Plan. SK: I was surprised that in this 15th Five-Year Plan, concentrated solar thermal was sort of singled out, …

SEPCOIII commissions new domestic heliostat production line in Qingdao

Deputy GM and Chief Engineer Dai Zengli of SEPCOIII welcomed CSTA to the launch. Qingdao, China — July 2, 2026 — SEPCOIII has commissioned a new flexible assembly line for high-precision wind-resistant heliostats at its Hongfeng Equipment subsidiary, adding standardized, large-scale heliostat manufacturing capacity. According to SEPCOIII’s technical report on the line, the core advances …

Three Gorges’ 100 MW Fresnel CSP enters trial operation at Hami in Xingjiang

The 100 MW Fresnel in Gansu by China General Nuclear is the only other Fresnel CSP at this scale worldwide [Ed: This plant incorporates multiple innovations, not only that outside China, Fresnel projects have never been built at this scale, and that even within China, this is only the second ever built at 100MW following …

Concentrated solar heat and hydrogen to decarbonize iron ore processing

Steel production accounts for roughly 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and nearly 70% of that comes from coal-fired blast furnaces; the dominant way the world has made iron for centuries. The Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) could decarbonize steelmaking because it can be powered by renewable electricity. It requires very pure sponge iron. Porous sponge …

Published at Renewable Energy – Design and performance optimization of dual-tower and triple-tower heliostat fields

Abstract: As solar tower systems continue to develop towards larger scales, it is necessary to configure dual-tower and triple-tower fields with higher heat collection capacities. This paper designs and optimizes the performance of dual-tower and triple-tower heliostat fields. Two field arrangement strategies are employed to alter the distance between towers and results show that the …

China General Nuclear’s 100 MW Jixi Tower CSP begins delivering power from freezing Baicheng

CGN’s 100 MW Tower CSP at Jixi base [Ed: This 100 MW CSP Tower project at Jixi, Baicheng is one of two 100 MW Tower CSP plants to be connected to one of China’s Ultra High Voltage (UHV) DC lines, the Lugu line, for extremely long-distance transmission of renewable energy. The 1.4GW New Energy park at …