CSP--The "Other" Solar Power--Finally Gets Some Respect

Implications: As the LA Times article describes, solar thermal electric generation schemes have actually been technically successful for some years and the 354 MW of parabolic trough systems built in the late 1980s are still running very well.  What's needed now for these technologies, collectively known as "CSP" for Concentrating Solar Power, to flourish is deployment that can foster learning-by-doing technology advancements.  A few thousand more MW of experience with building real-world hardware will almost certainly provide significant cumulative cost reductions and position several CSP schemes to compete economically for utility-scale generation in the sunniest parts of the world, most notably in the Southwest United States, which has abundant sunshine and rapidly growing electricity demand. But all of this hangs precariously by the thread of the Federal 30% Investment Tax Credit, which the current Congress seems bent on cutting.

Analysis: There is today no single "best" solar power technology.  CSP parabolic trough plants happen to be the low-cost leader among the current crop of PV and CSP options, but all fronts are advancing and none is yet capable of parity with its conventional alternatives.

The novel "distributed power tower" CSP design proposed by BrightSource may provide a lower-cost approach than troughs, but more field testing is needed to confirm that.  Depending on how you count them, there are at least 3 other promising CSP contenders in addition to these two.  Each has potentially compelling features and as-yet unexplored pitfalls that only field trials can fully sort out.

Why hasn't all of this been done already?  Money (of course).  Field tests of CSP designs, which are necessarily larger scale than PV demonstrations, require rather large capital outlays themselves and commercial-scale plants will be even bigger.  Who wants to sign up for the first one?  Not my local utility!  At least, not until it was faced with California's Renewable Portfolio Standard that will require it to find a bunch of megawatts in places where it didn't really care to look before.

The same concerns that gave rise to renewables portfolio requirements in 20-some States so far have also spurred the likes of BP and Google to see solar power as worthy of investment.  Collectively, these new market perspectives have literally brought CSP back from the dead over the past half decade.

Of course, the recent announcements of planned CSP plant construction totaling several thousand MW unanimously depend on extension of the 30% ITC to make the first-of-a-kind deals work.  If that doesn't happen this year, most--maybe all--of those plans will be shelved indefinitely.