What is Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)?
Solar thermal power generation, also known as Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) or Solar Thermal Electricity (STE), is an innovative approach to solar energy utilization. It uses a large number of reflectors to concentrate direct sunlight through focusing, heating and storing heat transfer fluids, which are then used to generate high-temperature, high-pressure steam to drive steam turbine generators for power generation.
Thanks to large-scale thermal energy storage systems, solar thermal power generation can achieve continuous, stable, and dispatchable high-quality power output, thus boasting broad development prospects.
In March 2023, the National Energy Administration (NEA) issued the Notice of the General Office of the National Energy Administration on Matters Relating to Promoting the Large-Scale Development of Concentrated Solar Power, which emphasized the great significance of fully recognizing the large-scale development of CSP:
CSP possesses the dual functions of peak-shaving power supply and energy storage, enabling new energy to regulate and support new energy itself. It can provide power systems with enhanced long-period peak-shaving capacity and rotational inertia, and has the potential to serve as a peak-shaving and basic power source in certain regions. As an effective means for the safe and reliable replacement of traditional energy with new energy, it provides robust support for accelerating the planning and construction of a new energy system.
Meanwhile, the CSP industry has a long industrial chain, which can boost the upgrading of traditional industries such as special glass, steel, cement, and molten salt, while driving the development of emerging industries including new materials, precision equipment, and intelligent control. The large-scale development and utilization of CSP will become a new growth point for China's new energy industry.
CSP is one of the two commercially viable solar power generation technologies currently available. Among these, the trough-type CSP technology applied in the project is the mainstream globally, accounting for approximately 77% of the global installed capacity with a cumulative total of 5.4 gigawatts. It stands as the most technologically mature and empirically proven CSP technical route with stable and reliable project performance.


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