Abengoa's Solnova 1 and 3 using parabolic troughs (5 plants planned in all)
* Spain (Andalusia) - 17 MW Sener's Solar Tres solar tower (molten salt energy storage)
* Spain (Andalusia) - 50 MW (each) Sener's Andasol I, II and III plants (molten salt energy storage)
Solar Thermal Heating Up
There has been a spate of new announcements regarding solar thermal power over the past year - there are over 5,800 MW of solar thermal plants in the planning stages worldwide.
The company receiving the most attention seems to be Ausra, a company set up by Dr David Mills (who pioneered the CSP plant at the Liddell power plant in New South Wales using compact linear Fresnel-reflector technology) with backing from Vinod Khosla and Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield & Byers (see here for a brief demo of how their technology works). Mills estimates that solar thermal plants could provide more than 90 percent of current U.S. power demand at prices competitive with coal and natural gas. "There's almost no limit to how much you can put into the grid," he says.
Mills presented a paper (pdf) at the IEA SolarPACES conference in Las Vegas recently which revealed some interesting statistics about the construction cost of solar-thermal technologies: US$3,000 per kW of capacity, estimating this will drop to US$1,500 per kW over the next "several" years. The New York Times last year quoted GE Energy executives estimating coal plant construction between US$2,000 and US$3,000 per kW. Ausra says it can generate electricity for 10 cents per kWh (close to the current cost using natural gas), and it expects the price to drop even further.
According to Technology Review:
What distinguishes Ausra's design is its relative simplicity. In conventional solar-thermal plants such as Solel's, a long trough of parabolic mirrors focuses sunlight on a tube filled with a heat-transfer fluid, often some sort of oil or brine. The fluid, in turn, produces steam to drive a turbine and produce electricity. Ausra's solar collectors employ mass-produced and thus cheaper flat mirrors, and they focus light onto tubes filled with water, thus directly producing steam. Ausra's collectors produce less power, but that power costs less to produce.
Ausra is initially planning a 177 MW plant in California, and has committed to supply 1,500 MW of power to Californian utilities PG&E and FPL. They are also rumoured to be moving in to Texas as well.
PG&E have also signed a 25-year deal with Ausra competitor Solel Solar Systems of Israel to buy power from a 553 MW solar thermal plant that Solel is developing in California's Mojave Desert. FPL has also hired Solel to upgrade the SEGS solar-thermal plants it operates in the Mojave.
Another PG&E contract is with BrightSource to supply between 500 MW and 900 MW of power per year from solar tower plants in California, beginning in 2011, with the first of a number of 100 MW facilities being built in Ivanpah.
Other companies active in the US include eSolar (linked to Google's energy initiatives), RocketDyne and SkyFuel.
Abu Dhabi's Masdar Initiative and Spain's Sener are have formed a joint venture to build and operate concentrating solar power plants across the world's sunbelt regions called Torresol Energy.
Independently of Torresol, Masdar is developing its 100 MW "Shams 1" CSP plant in Abu Dhabi.
Algeria and Germany have signed a a joint research agreement for the development of a new generation of large-scale, low-cost solar thermal power plants (which could contribute to the Desert-TREC vision of large scale CSP in North Africa powering Europe).
More new plants are being planned in :
* Algeria - 20 MW Abengoa's plant in Hassi-R'Mel
* Australia - 10 MW Queensland State Government facility in Cloncurry
* Australia - 154 MW Solar Systems and TRUEnergy's plant in Mildura
* Egypt - 70 MW plant in Kuraymat
* Iran - 17 MW plant in Yazd
* Israel - 250 MW plant in Ashalim
* Morocco - 20 MW Abengoa's plant in Ain-Ben-Mathar
* US (Arizona) - 280 MW Abengoa and Arizona Public Service's plant in Gila Bend
* US (California) - 50 MW Inland Energy's plant in Victor