“I am most satisfied because things are actually going forward. Five years ago only very few people knew about the relevance of concentrating solar power and the technological progress stagnated” says Ludger Lorych, Coordinator of the German research program for concentrating solar power from VDI/VDE-ITInnovations, who will be presenting a talk about the German state of the art technology in the Concentrated Solar Power, 5-6 November in Seville.
Jose Luis Garcia, who will also be speaking at the summit, is a project campaigner for Greenpeace was gladly surprised by the potential power generation of CSP “It was really satisfying to discover the huge potential and key role that this technology can play towards a renewable powered society, both in Spain and globally, as an outcome of the several prospective analysis carried out by Greenpeace.”
Although Germany and Spain are the clear leaders on the technology, other countries are looking to adopt similar feed in tariffs to the ones in Spain, which subsidise the power produced to help compete with carbon dumping energy generation, such as traditional coal fired plants “Within a few years high-tech components like collectors, receiver and storage-technologies were developed and the progress still is going on. Now a framework for installing concentrated solar power plants is established in many countries for introducing the new developed technologies into the market, especially in Spain” adds Lorych
The ability to store heat to produce energy overnight will give CSP a great competitive advantage and cost effectiveness. “Economic incentives will be key and should be used to encourage storage whenever it is technically feasible. With appropriate incentives, heat storage will become cost-competitive much earlier” said Garcia
The CSP professional participating in the Concentrated Solar Power Summit have plenty of advice if you want to start your own plant. Discussing how to cut costs and increase your bottom line, Jürgen Rheinlände, speaker at the event, recommends o undertake profound pre-feasibility studies considering a wide scope of candidate technologies and plant concepts to make sure that you decide for the best solution appropriate to the local climatic, economic and infrastructural boundary conditions.
For more information into the Concentrated Solar Power Summit, or to learn more about it visit www.csptoday.com. For info: Belén Gallego belen@csptoday.com