20 NOVEMBER 2020
Australia has plenty of sunshine but the more PV we build the harder it becomes to use all that solar energy. Storage is the answer, if your budget stretches that far. A cunning combination of solar and storage is concentrated solar thermal, where mirrors focus the sun’s rays to heat a solution to make steam to drive a turbine to – presto – make electricity.
An All-Energy ustralia 2020 panel chaired by Australian Energy Market Operator stream lead sector coupling Dr Cameron Potter looked at how the generation-with-storage solution is shaping up.
About 6.2GW of concentrated solar thermal is installed around the world, with 1.5GW under construction. Parabolic troughs are the most popular installed generation, near 5GW, but towers are gaining attention as an apparent lower LCOE advantage becomes more obvious. A notable failure is SolarReserve’s 110MW Crescent Dunes facility in the US, due to come back online after repairs next year.