TY - JOUR A1 - Thonig, Richard A1 - Lilliestam, Johan T1 - Concentrating solar technology policy should encourage high temperatures and modularity to enable spillovers JF - AIP conference proceedings N2 - Thermal energy from concentrating solar thermal technologies (CST) may contribute to decarbonizing applications from heating and cooling, desalination, and power generation to commodities such as aluminium, hydrogen, ammonia or sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). So far, successful commercial-scale CST projects are restricted to solar industrial process heat (SIPH) and concentrating solar power (CSP) generation and, at least for the latter, depend on support from public policies that have been stagnating for years. As they are technologically similar, spillovers between SIPH or CSP and other emerging CST could accelerate commercialization across use cases while maximizing the impact of scarce support. Here, we review the technical potential for cross-fertilization between different CST applications and the ability of the current policy regime to enable this potential. Using working temperature as the key variable, we identify different clusters of current and emerging CST technologies. Low-temperature CST (<400℃) applications for heating, cooling and desalination already profit from the significant progress made in line-focussing CSP over the last 15 years. A newly emerging cluster of high temperature CST (>600℃) for solar chemistry and high-grade process heat has significant leverage for spillovers with point-focussing solar tower third-generation CSP currently under development. For these spillovers to happen, however, CSP policy designs would need to prioritize innovation for high working temperature and encourage modular plant design, by adequately remunerating hybridized plants with heat and power in and outputs that include energy sources beyond CST solar fields. This would enable synergies across applications and scales by incentivizing compatibility of modular CST components in multiple sectors and use cases. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0149423 SN - 1551-7616 SN - 0094-243X IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 11 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schöniger, Franziska A1 - Thonig, Richard A1 - Resch, Gustav A1 - Lilliestam, Johan T1 - Making the sun shine at night BT - comparing the cost of dispatchable concentrating solar power and photovoltaics with storage JF - Energy sources. B, Economics, planning and policy N2 - Sustainable electricity systems need renewable and dispatchable energy sources. Solar energy is an abundant source of renewable energy globally which is, though, by nature only available during the day, and especially in clear weather conditions. We compare three technology configurations able to provide dispatchable solar power at times without sunshine: Photovoltaics (PV) combined with battery (BESS) or thermal energy storage (TES) and concentrating solar power (CSP) with TES. Modeling different periods without sunshine, we find that PV+BESS is competitive for shorter storage durations while CSP+TES gains economic advantages for longer storage periods (also over PV+TES). The corresponding tipping points lie at 2-3 hours (current cost), and 4-10 hours if expectations on future cost developments are taken into consideration. PV+TES becomes only more competitive than CSP+TES with immense additional cost reductions of PV. Hence, there remain distinct niches for two technologies: PV+BESS for short storage durations and CSP+TES for longer ones. KW - Concentrating solar power (CSP) KW - dispatchable renewable electricity KW - thermal energy storage KW - photovoltaics KW - utility-scale batteries KW - flexibility KW - energy system modeling Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/15567249.2020.1843565 SN - 1556-7249 SN - 1556-7257 VL - 16 IS - 1 SP - 55 EP - 74 PB - Taylor & Francis Group CY - Philadelphia ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Lilliestam, Johan A1 - Du, Fengli A1 - Gilmanova, Alina A1 - Mehos, Mark A1 - Wang, Zhifeng A1 - Thonig, Richard T1 - Scaling up CSP BT - how long will it take? T2 - AIP conference proceedings N2 - Concentrating solar power (CSP) is one of the few scalable technologies capable of delivering dispatchable renewable power. Therefore, many expect it to shoulder a significant share of system balancing in a renewable electricity future powered by cheap, intermittent PV and wind power: the IEA, for example, projects 73 GW CSP by 2030 and several hundred GW by 2050 in its Net-Zero by 2050 pathway. In this paper, we assess how fast CSP can be expected to scale up and how long time it would take to get new, high-efficiency CSP technologies to market, based on observed trends and historical patterns. We find that to meaningfully contribute to net-zero pathways the CSP sector needs to reach and exceed the maximum historical annual growth rate of 30%/year last seen between 2010-2014 and maintain it for at least two decades. Any CSP deployment in the 2020s will rely mostly on mature existing technologies, namely parabolic trough and molten-salt towers, but likely with adapted business models such as hybrid CSP-PV stations, combining the advantages of higher-cost dispatchable and low-cost intermittent power. New third-generation CSP designs are unlikely to play a role in markets during the 2020s, as they are still at or before the pilot stage and, judging from past pilot-to-market cycles for CSP, they will likely not be ready for market deployment before 2030. CSP can contribute to low-cost zero-emission energy systems by 2050, but to make that happen, at the scale foreseen in current energy models, ambitious technology-specific policy support is necessary, as soon as possible and in several countries. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0148709 SN - 1551-7616 SN - 0094-243X VL - 2815 IS - 1 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Thonig, Richard A1 - Gilmanova, Alina A1 - Zhan, Jing A1 - Lilliestam, Johan T1 - Chinese CSP for the world? JF - AIP conference proceedings N2 - For three consecutive five-year plans since 2006, China has worked on building up an internationally competitive CSP industry and value chain. One big milestone in commercializing proprietary Chinese CSP technology was the 2016 demonstration program of 20 commercial-scale projects. China sought to increase and demonstrate capacities for domestic CSP technology development and deployment. At the end of the 13th five-year period, we take stock of the demonstrated progress of the Chinese CSP industry towards delivering internationally competitive CSP projects. We find that in January 2021, eight commercial-scale projects, in total 500 MW, have been completed and three others were under construction in China. In addition, Chinese EPC’s have participated in three international CSP projects, although proprietary Chinese CSP designs have not been applied outside China. The largest progress has been made in molten-salt tower technology, with several projects by different companies completed and operating successfully: here, the aims were met, and Chinese companies are now at the global forefront of this segment. Further efforts for large-scale demonstration are needed, however, for other CSP technologies, including parabolic trough - with additional demonstration hindered by a lack of further deployment policies. In the near future, Chinese companies seek to employ the demonstrated capabilities in the tower segment abroad and are developing projects using Chinese technology, financing, and components in several overseas markets. If successful, this will likely lead to increasing competition and further cost reductions for the global CSP sector. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0085752 SN - 1551-7616 SN - 0094-243X SP - 1 EP - 11 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Resch, Gustav A1 - Schöniger, Franziska A1 - Kleinschmitt, Christoph A1 - Franke, Katja A1 - Thonig, Richard A1 - Lilliestam, Johan T1 - Deep decarbonization of the European power sector calls for dispatchable CSP JF - AIP conference proceedings N2 - Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) offers flexible and decarbonized power generation and is one of the few dispatchable renewable technologies able to generate renewable electricity on demand. Today (2018) CSP contributes only 5TWh to the European power generation, but it has the potential to become one of the key pillars for European decarbonization pathways. In this paper we investigate how factors and pivotal policy decisions leading to different futures and associated CSP deployment in Europe in the years up to 2050. In a second step we characterize the scenarios with their associated system cost and the costs of support policies. We show that the role of CSP in Europe critically depends on political developments and the success or failure of policies outside renewable power. In particular, the uptake of CSP depends on the overall decarbonization ambition, the degree of cross border trade of renewable electricity and is enabled by the presence of strong grid interconnection between Southern and Norther European Member States as well as by future electricity demand growth. The presence of other baseload technologies, prominently nuclear power in France, reduce the role and need for CSP. Assuming favorable technological development, we find a strong role for CSP in Europe in all modeled scenarios: contributing between 100TWh to 300TWh of electricity to a future European power system. This would require increasing the current European CSP fleet by a factor of 20 to 60 in the next 30 years. To achieve this financial support between € 0.4-2 billion per year into CSP would be needed, representing only a small share of overall support needs for power-system transformation. Cooperation of Member States could further help to reduce this cost. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0086710 SN - 1551-7616 SN - 0094-243X SP - 050006-1 EP - 050006-9 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville ER -