2. Concentrating Solar Power(CSP)
• Concentrating solar power (CSP) plants use mirrors to
concentrate the sun's energy to drive traditional steam turbines
or engines that create electricity. The thermal energy
concentrated in a CSP plant can be stored and used to produce
electricity when it is needed, day or night.
3. How CSP Works?
• All concentrating solar
power (CSP) technologies
use a mirror configuration to
concentrate the sun’s light
energy onto a receiver and
convert it into heat by
melting Salt. The heat can
then be used to create
steam to drive a turbine to
produce electrical power or
used as industrial process
heat.
5. Concentrating Solar Power Projects by Technology
• Parabolic Trough: line-focus systems that
use curved mirrors to focus sunlight on a
receiver
• Linear Fresnel reflector: line-focus systems
that use relaxed and flat mirrors arranged
to focus sunlight on a receiver
• Power Tower(Central Receiver): point-
focus systems that use heliostats to focus
sunlight on a tower-mounted receiver
• Dish/Engine: point-focus systems that use
curved mirrors to focus sunlight on a
receiver.
6. Merits of CSP
• Ease to Integrate thermal energy storage systems to use to generate
electricity during cloudy periods or for hours after sunset or before sunrise.
• A Flexible and dispatchable source of renewable energy.
• Possibility to be combined with combined cycle power plants resulting in
hybrid power plants which provide high-value, dispatchable power.
• Possibility to be integrated into existing thermal-fired power plants that
use a power block like CSP; such as coal, natural gas, biofuel or geothermal
plants.
• Can use fossil fuel to supplement the solar output during periods of low
solar radiation. In that case, a natural gas-fired heat or a gas steam
boiler/reheater is used.
7. Current status of concentrated solar power (CSP)
globally
• According to CSP Today Global Tracker, October 3, 2016, of the 17
commercial-scale projects that are currently being built in the world,
15 include TES (Thermal Storage Systems).
• It is estimated that some 13 GWh of thermal energy storage (TES),
based almost exclusively on molten salts, was operational in relation
to the CSP plants in the five continents at the end of 2017, according
to Ren21 Global Status Report 2018, in the section Concentrating
Solar Thermal Power (CSP).
