34 July/August 2013 | Renewable Energy Focus

New markets for solar thermal power gain some momentum

THE SOLAR thermal power market

continued its expansion in 2012. Altogether,

712MW of additional power capacity was

connected to the grid, a substantial increase

in comparison to 2011’s 440MW. Cumulative

installed capacity by the end of 2012 grew to 2.42GW.

Once again, almost all of the newly

commissioned power capacity was in

Spain (700MW), taking the coun-

try’s cumulative capacity to 1803MW,

mainly distributed in Andalucia and

Extremadura. The Spanish market

remained driven by the feed-in tariff

regulation published in May 2007 (RD

661/2007) North America’s contribu-

tion was just 7MW in 2012, but there

are several hundred megawatts under

construction so the contribution of

the US market will be much higher in

2013.

Due to its bankability, the most

popular Concentrating Solar Power

(CSP) technology remains para-

bolic trough, with approximately 93%

market share of the power capacity

installed. By 2015 this value is expected

to decrease to 70%, with power tower

plants gaining share in the CSP mar-

ket thanks to the capability to reach

higher process temperatures. By end

2012 just 61.5MW of tower power

plants were installed, but 630MW are

under construction with scheduled

commissioning dates in 2013 and 2014.

While Fresnel technology remains

the least-implemented form of

CSP, 2012 was a great year for it. A

remarkable project was commissioned,

the Puerto Errado 2 (PE2), a 30MW

solar thermal power station built by

Novatec Solar using its proprietary

solar fi eld technology. It is the largest

CSP plant using Fresnel Technology

Worldwide so far.

Cost pressuresPressure on the CSP market per-

sists, especially from cost competitive

PV installations. An indicator for this

competition is the change of technol-

ogy in initially assigned CSP projects

that turned into PV projects. Such

projects include:

the Blythe project which changed •

from parabolic trough to PV

technology;

the Imperial Valley and Calico •

projects were changed from dish-

stirling to PV.

The change from CSP to PV tech-

nology should be seen in both the

market situation and the particular

context of these projects (eg the failed

business strategy and sunsequent

insolvency of Solar Millennium and

the failed up-scaling of the Tessera

dish technology respectively). Other

key events of the year include:

Siemens• announced it is pulling out

of the solar business in 2012. It is

now seeking for a buyer of the CSP

branch formerly known as Solel.Flagsol was a joint venture formed •

in 2007 between Solar Millennium

and Ferrostaal to design and build

solar-thermal plants; it developed

four power projects in Spain and

one in Egypt. Once Solar Millen-

nium stated its insolvency it sold its

Flagsol stake to Ferrostaal, which

is also now expected to offl oad

Flagsol, due to business strategy

changes within the company.

Flabeg• was another CSP fi rm that

fi led for bankruptcy. The German

company (which manufactured mir-

rors for CSP projects) was actually

based in Pennsylvania and received

millions of dollars in fi nancial assis-

tance from federal and state gov-

ernments for the Genesis Solar

Energy Project and the Crescent

Dunes Solar Energy Project. It is

searching now new owners as well.

Positive newsThe news for 2012 was not all bad

however. Other big players made great

steps forward though. For example,

ACWA Power from Saudi Arabia is in

a good position to move forward in the

MENA region, while Spanish compa-

nies, Abengoa, Acciona, and Sener, are

still in good standing.

2012 was also a record year for

installed capacity, while the pro-

cess of market diversifi cation contin-

ues. New markets such as Morocco,

India, South Africa and China gained

momentum and old markets like

Spain and the US stayed in place.

However, as CSP projects move in

4-5 year timeframes, the installa-

tion fi gures reached are the result of

the market conditions we saw in the

past. In this context it is highly pre-

dictable that the market in Spain will

reach a sudden stop and the market

in the USA will face new challenges

due to changing political and fi nancial

Focus on renewable power generation

Cumulated installed

capacity 2012(GW)

Installed capacity 2012

(GW)

Estimated electricity

generation 2012*(TWh/y)

Europe 1.81 0.70 3.6

North America 0.52 0.01 1.0

World Total 2.42 0.71 4.6

Largest national Market Spain: 1.81 Spain: 0.70

Table 5: Summary of the global solar thermal power market 2012

REF0413_Solar Thermal 34 30-07-2013 12:24:17

35July/August 2013 | Renewable Energy Focus

support schemes. The key highlights

for the CSP market are:

Thanks to the Moroccan Solar •

Plan with the proposed 500MW

Ouazarzate Solar Complex, Morocco

represents a very promising coun-

try in North Africa. In September

2012 the Saudi developer ACWA

won the contract for Ouazarzate

Phase 1 to build and operate the

fi rst 160MW parabolic trough CSP

plant with 3h storage. The tar-

iff delivered by the consortium led

by ACWA Power was €0.145/kWh,

28.8% lower than the one off ered by

the second nearest bidder.

The Tunisian Solar Plan consists •

of all kinds of projects from renew-

able energy sources. Currently

there is no CSP plant in the coun-

try under construction or in oper-

ation. However several projects are

under development. STEG is devel-

oping a 50MW plant at Akarit,

SITEP is developing a tower plant

at El Borma and TuNur is develop-

ing 2GW at Rjim Maatoug, certifi ed

by the Desertec Foundation. The

Desertec Industrial Intitiative (Dii)

developed further smaller reference

projects in Tunesia, but also larger

ones in Morocco and Algeria. The

most advanced of those are the ref-

erence projects in Morocco, however

all of these projects still have a long

way to go until implementation.

In Egypt, so far only one CSP plant •

is in operation, the ISCC Kuraymat

Solar Thermal Power Plant (140

MW, with 20 MW solar power). A

pure CSP plant is also under devel-

opment: the CSP Kom Ombo Proj-

ect (100 MW).

Jordan’s parliament is intend-•

ing to move to renewable energies

through a system of feed-in-tariff s

(FiTs) introduced by Jordan’s Elec-

tricity Regulatory Commissions in

April 2012 for PV and CSP, ending

when the installed capacity reaches

500MW. The prices for CSP are

fi xed at US$0.183/kWh.

China is a potential market for •

CSP – it hopes to develop its own

technology. Research facilities are

in place, such as the 1MW Yan-

qing Solar Thermal Power Sta-

tion (commissioned in 2010) or

the 1.5MW Beijing Badaling Solar

Tower, which was commissioned in

August 2012. Furthermore there

are some projects under con-

struction, such as the 50MW Del-

ingha Solar Tower Power Plant, the

100MW Golmud 100MW Parabolic

Trough Plant, the 50MW Erdos

Parabolic Trough Solar Power

Plant and the 92MW Ningxia ISCC

Plant.

The US is forecast for an 120% •

increase in its installed capac-

ity between 2013 and 2014 and

close in on Spain. In 2012 the US

had 572MW installed and fi ve

CSP plants were under construc-

tion with a combined capacity of

1319 MW. These include Solana

(280MW) with six hours of storage

and Mojave Solar Project (280MW)

located in Arizona and Califor-

nia, respectively; both promoted

by Abengoa and using parabolic

trough technology. Ivanpah is the

largest plant under construction.

At with 370MW, it is being devel-

oped by BrightSource Energy in

California, employing superheated

steam tower technology. Solar Reserve is constructing the Cres-

cent Dunes Solar Energy 110MW

molten salt tower project with ten

hours of molten salt storage.

Saudi Arabia announced a mas-•

sive construction of solar proj-

ects through King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (KACARE): 41GW of installed

capacity by 2032, of this 16GW of PV

and 25GW of solar thermal power.

Also on the Arabian Peninsu-•

lar, in the UAE, the three phase

Shams solar power station, located

approximately 120 kilometers

southwest of Abu Dhabi City, is

a CSP plant of note. Construc-

tion on the 100MW Shams 1 was

completed at the end of 2012, with

commissioning taking place ear-

lier this year. Shams 1 is the largest

plant in the world using parabolic

trough technology to date.

South Africa entered the solar •

thermal market in 2012 with the

construction of two plants. Both

scheduled to be fi nished in 2014,

they are Kaxu Solar One (100MW

parabolic trough with three

hour storage) and Khi Solar One

(50MW solar power tower with

two hours thermal storage). They

will be located in Northern Cape

Province near Upington and Pofad-

der, respectively. Abengoa won

the PPAs in the fi rst round of the

REFIT programme and will con-

struct, operate and maintain both

plants, owning the 51% major-

ity share; IDC holds 29% and the

Black Economic Empowerment

programme maintains the remain-

ing 20%. In the second round of

government tenders a PPA was

awarded for the Bokpoort plant

(50MW parabolic trough) to be

developed by Saudi’s ACWA.

Focus on renewable power generation

The 100MW Shams 1 CSP plant in the Western Region of Abu Dhabi was offi cially opened earlier this year. (Courtesy of Ryan Carter/Crown Prince Court – Abu Dhabi).

REF0413_Solar Thermal 35 30-07-2013 12:24:17

36 July/August 2013 | Renewable Energy Focus

Focus on renewable power generation

An initiative taken by the Govern-•

ment of India, Jawaharlal Nehru

National Solar Mission, was born

with the aim of helping solar

energy take off in this country. In

its second phase the purpose is to

achieve 10GW connected to the

network by 2017. The fi rst proj-

ects, with 50MW capacity in Raj-

asthan and Gujarat, are now under

construction.

Spanish setbackAlthough in 2012 the majority of

CSP plants in the world were con-

nected to the grid in Spain, the Span-

ish government is applying some

regulatory changes that will certainly

cut revenues for plant operators, espe-

cially when those using gas as an addi-

tional source for power generation.

The measures comprise a 7% tax to

the income of CSP plants, a new ref-

erence index to update FiTs annually

and the withdrawal of the pool + pre-

mium option whilst more cuts are to

be applied. Nevertheless, in total, there

are 2527MW under construction that

will be fi nished between 2013 and 2014.

One of the innovative projects in

2012 was the launch of the fi rst com-

mercial hybrid plant that combines

solar and biomass energy. The €153mn

Borges Solar Thermal plant, located

in Catalonia, has a power capac-

ity of 22.5MW. It was constructed in

20 months. The partners of the proj-

ect were Abantia and COMSA EMTE.

Another outstanding project was the

start of commercial operation of Puerto

Errado 2 (PE2), the largest CSP plant

using Fresnel Technology with 30MW

of power capacity. The plant was con-

structed by Novatec Solar.

In Thailand, German company

Solarlite constructed and commis-

sioned a 5MW direct steam power

plant together with the company Thai Solar Energy. The project was devel-

oped by Siasol and is eligible to the

offi cial FiT. It is a landmark in the

technological development of CSP

plants because it is the fi rst commer-

cial direct steam facility based on

parabolic trough technology.

Room for improvementThe CSP market needs to realise

signifi cant cost reductions for utility-

scale plants in order to make them

profi table and allow its deployment

in a time of low price PV modules.

With PV technology much less expen-

sive than CSP, the key selling argu-

ment for CSP remains energy storage.

Although PV plants can also store

electrical energy in batteries, this

option is disadvantageous due to high

prices and short lifetimes. The further

development of storage systems for

CSP plants is vitalthen for a perma-

nent larger share of solar technology

in the market of electricity genera-

tion. Furthermore CSP can be directly

integrated to thermal processes in the

oil, gas and chemical industry.

The key areas where CSP cost

reductions need to be achieved gen-

erally are in the solar fi eld, the heat

transfer fl uid, the storage system, the

power block and the balance of costs.

In order to reduce the production

costs of the electricity, the Thermal

Energy Storage (TES) systems need

constant improvement. The Ther-

mochemical Energy Storage has the

advantage, in comparison with the

latent and sensible systems, to store

the energy with high density and is

the most promising system under

development. Research of this kind of

storage is focused on improvements

of the chemical reaction and dealing

with storage materials issues.

Regarding the storage system new

improvements on the molten salts

were made. Norwegian company Yara International identifi ed the potassium

calcium nitrate as a promising stor-

age material. The advantages of it are

lower melting point at 91ºC and lower

grade of corrosion than the conven-

tional molten salts used in CSP appli-

cations (see page 38, Renewable Energy

Focus, January/February 2013).

Another component which plays a

key role to reduce the global cost of

the CSP plants is the mirror material.

The goal is to achieve better refl ec-

tivity and also better market prices.

SCHOTT Solar designed a receiver

with a new coating which increases

the degree of absorption to over 95.5

% and the thermal radiation has been

reduced to less than 9.5%.

Thermal applicationsApart from electricity generation,

CSP technology has a great and

nearly untapped application potential

in thermal processes, such as the min-

ing industry, cooling and the enhanced

oil recovery (EOR). The mining

industry is one of the largest energy

consumers in Chile, for example, and

presents a great market potential

for CSP covering part of the energy

demand (more than 55% of the diesel

fuel consumption) in the extraction

and production processes. The copper

production is estimated to increase

7mn tons in 2020, thus 32.7GWh

demand is expected by 2020 in com-

parison with 18.8GWh in 2009. A fi rst

installation has already been realised

by Abengoa with a 14MW solar ther-

mal plant with thermal energy stor-

age for Minera El Tesoro.

In Qatar, where air condition

use is very high, Fresnel solar ther-

mal receivers were installed at a soc-

cer stadium to produce cool air by

thermally driven absorption chillers.

Meantime, there are currently two

facilities commissioned in 2011 using

CSP for EOR, Chevron’s Coalinga (29

MWth) developed by BrightSource

with pressurised steam solar power

tower technology and Berry Petro-leum EOR plant (7 MWth) developed

by GlassPoint. The latter oil giant

Royal Dutch Shell as well as Rock-Port Capital, Nth Power, and Chrysa-lix Energy Venture Capital.

ResearchSeveral new CSP technology

research facilities were commis-

sioned in 2012. A Molten Salt Loop

Test facility was installed at the San-dia National Laboratories in Albu-

querque, New Mexico, for example.

The facility allows improvements in

the effi ciency and higher-tempera-

tures operation for linear Fresnel and

trough systems through utilisation of

molten salt Heat Transfer Fluid.

Another new research facility was

built in Almeria (Spain) by Advanced Technology Center for Renewables Energies. The objective here is to

study how a variable geometry central

receiver works and how it improves

the system effi ciency keeping the

cosine of the angle of incidence as

close to 1 as possible during the day

changing the position.

REF0413_Solar Thermal 36 30-07-2013 12:24:18