Molten salt storage in concentrated solar power plants could meet the electricity-on-demand role of coal and gas

The first thing you see of the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Facility, and you can be miles away, is a light so bright you can’t look directly at it. This sits atop a 640-foot cement tower, rising from the flat, empty Nevada desert around the halfway point on the highway from Reno to Las Vegas. …

Sodium-based Vast Solar Combines the Best of Trough & Tower Concentrated Solar Power to Win our Innovation Award

At the 2019 SolarPACES Conference, Vast Solar took the SolarPACES Technical Innovation Award for their use of high temperature sodium-based HTF in tower CSP, presented in their paper: Vast Solar: improving performance and reducing cost and risk using high temperature modular arrays and sodium heat transfer fluid. Their design appears like a small modular tower …

Cerro Dominador Concentrated Solar Power developer plans larger plants in Chile

The ground-breaking 110 MW Cerro Dominador Concentrated Solar Power plant could start commissioning by end of 2019 and the fund-owned developer is studying larger projects at three other sites in northern Chile, Francisco Vizcaino, Project Director at Cerro Dominador, told New Energy Update. After a troubled start, Latin America’s first utility-scale Concentrating Solar Power plant …

STE project survey on Concentrated Solar Power stakeholders mapping

We would like to invite you to take part in the CSP stakeholders mapping survey launched by the HORIZON-STE project to support the creation of consortia that will fulfil the SET-Plan goals by participating in R&I projects and/or First-of-a-Kind plants. HORIZON-STE is a Horizon2020 funded project aiming at supporting the Implementation of the Initiative for …

Moroccan concentrated solar power plant hailed as shining example

Efforts by the North African country to tap into the potential offered by renewable energy should be replicated at EU level, according to the head of a successful Moroccan energy agency. So successful has the country been in meeting its electricity needs that it has easily exceeded it’s planned 35 per cent renewable energy target …

Concentrated Solar Power costs are expected to fall by 79% by 2022

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 (IRENA). The International Renewable Energy Agency …

Saudi Arabia starts offering loans to develop renewable energy

Saudi Arabia will start offering loans for renewable energy projects and manufacturers of renewable-energy components as the kingdom seeks to diversify its economy away from crude oil. The 105 billion-riyal ($28 billion) Saudi Industrial Development Fund opened applications for the program, called Mutjadeda, on Sunday. The program will give loans of as much as 1.2 …

Refractaris leads the construction of solar shields for concentrated solar power

In the world, Córdoba now begins to sound due to other temperatures, those generated in the furnaces and solar shields manufactured by the company Refractaris, based in Montemayor, and which has become an international benchmark in the energy sector and solar thermal technology. In recent years, 95 percent of the existing solar shields in the …

Albuquerque, New Mexico, Chosen for International Concentrated Solar Power Conference

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that the United States will host the world’s biggest conference on concentrating solar power (CSP) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In October 2020, SolarPACES (Solar Power and Chemical Energy Systems), a program of the International Energy Agency, will bring together researchers from around the world to talk about the …

New trans-Africa Concentrated Solar Power, PV plan tests regional scaling skills

A 4.5 GW solar build plan proposed by multilaterals and governments in Botswana and Namibia will present significant scaling challenges, requiring clear political momentum and a ramped tendering and development process, regional experts told New Energy Update. In August, the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Energy unveiled a giant solar expansion plan in …