Climate Action 2012-2013

ENERGY AND POWER
THE FUTURE OF
CONCENTRATING
SOLAR POWER
By Carol Werner, Executive Director and Blaise Sheridan, Policy Associate,
Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI)
Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) is a set of technologies that have enormous potential to generate
clean, carbon-free electricity in areas of high solar intensity. Thanks to innovative system configurations,
including thermal storage, CSP is set to play an important role providing reliable, dispatchable power as
nations move towards low-carbon electricity generation.
Concentrating Solar Power (CSP), often referred
to as solar thermal power, is a collection of
renewable energy technologies that use mirrors
or lenses to focus the sun’s energy onto a small
area, creating intense heat that can be used to
generate electricity. The downstream CSP system
resembles a traditional steam-powered generating
facility, the primary worldwide power generation
method. In effect, a CSP facility replaces the
heat released by burning coal or natural gas
with the thermal energy of the sun. Several
methods of concentrating solar radiation exist,
including parabolic troughs, linear mirrors, towers
and dishes. Currently, there are more than two
gigawatts (GW) of installed CSP capacity across
10 countries worldwide.
Globally, CSP’s potential is significant, estimated at
3,000,000 terawatt-hours per year, over 165 times
current world electricity demand. The regions
with the largest direct-solar resources are Africa,
Australia and the Middle East, followed by China,
Central and South America, and the United
States. In 2010 the International Energy Agency
(IEA) concluded that with proper financial
support, global CSP capacity could reach 147
GW by 2020. In the long term, IEA estimates that
under favourable conditions CSP could grow to
1,089 GW by 2050 and supply 11.3 per cent of
the world’s electricity demand.
CSP technologies are well established and
commercially proven. There are currently over 2
GW of commercial-scale or pilot CSP projects
operating across Algeria, Australia, Egypt, France,
Iran, Italy, Morocco, Spain, Thailand and USA.
Spain and USA combined represent 90 per cent
of the installed CSP capacity. Globally, there are
more than 20 GW of new capacity in various states
of development. CSP plants are planned or under
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