Concentrating Solar Power Heating Up Globally
With all the focus on the demise of Solyndra last year and the attempts by the mainstream media to portray the death of Concentrating Solar Power due to the decrease in price of Solar PV thanks to the increasing efficiencies of Chinese production lines, it seems that CSP has been quietly making steady progress across the globe.
With facilities coming online recently in California and the Torresol facilities in Spain coming online at the end of last year. We also see the increased activity in the UAE as they seek to shore up their internal electricity supply due to the impending demise of the oil industry.
The question that still needs to be answered is can the global community bring enough of these large and relatively low output facilities online in the coming decade to make a serious contribution to the urgent issue of replacing the loss of oil from the energy supply infrastructure.
To get an idea of the daunting task that we face the facility in the video below is only capable of producing 5MW peak. Combine that with results from Australia of the total combined output of all the wind power facilities only able to produce an average of 30-40% of full capacity and we start to get a feel for the immensity of the challenge.
