Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser

Prospects and problems of concentrating solar power technologies

for power generation in the desert regions
Xinhai Xu a,b, K. Vignarooban c, Ben Xu d, K. Hsu a, A.M. Kannan a,n
a
The Polytechnic School, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Arizona State University, Mesa, AZ 85212, USA
b
School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518055, China
c
Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Jaffna, Jaffna 40000, Sri Lanka
d
Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Concentrated solar power plants (CSPs) are gaining momentum due to their potential of power gen-
Received 2 February 2015 eration throughout the day for base load applications in the desert regions with extremely high direct
Received in revised form normal irradiance (DNI). Among various types of the CSPs, solar tower power technologies are becoming
15 July 2015
the front runners especially in the United States and around the world with the possibility to compete
Accepted 16 September 2015
Available online 10 November 2015
with traditional power generation technologies in terms of efficiency and levelized cost of electricity
(LCOE). A bibliometric analysis of the publications on the CSP systems and components since 1990 shows
Keywords: a total of 6400 þ publications and reveals an exponential growth due to reasons that CSP systems
Concentrating solar power promises a lot of potential as the future large scale power source for varied applications. This review
Levelized cost of electricity
consolidates the benefits and challenges of the CSP technologies particularly in the desert regions.
Direct normal irradiance
Thorough literature analysis as well as the meteorological data projects the trend that the CSP systems
Heat transfer fluids
Thermal energy storage would become a reality in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Australia, Southwestern region of
Operational maintenance the United States, Southwestern part of China and China/Mongolia border with high direct normal
irradiance. However, enormous amount of support and capital investments are needed for making these
CSP systems realistic as there is not much power grid network in existence. It is evident that there are
multiple challenges specifically in water consumption, materials design and development for the opti-
mum heat transfer fluid, thermal energy storage and receiver subsystems in addition to commercial
viability and environmental impacts. Each of the challenges is discussed in detail and suggestions are
made to address the challenges.
& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1107
2. CSP in desert regions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1108
2.1. Overview of CSP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1108
2.2. CSP in Southwest of the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1108
2.3. CSP in Spain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1113
2.4. CSP in MENA (Middle East and North Africa) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1113
2.4.1. North African countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1113
2.4.2. DESERTEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1113
2.5. CSP in Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1113
2.6. CSP in China and Mongolia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1114
2.6.1. China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1114
2.6.2. GOBITEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1115
2.7. CSP in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1115
3. Technical challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1116

n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ 1 480 727 1102.
E-mail address: amk@asu.edu (A.M. Kannan).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.09.015
1364-0321/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131 1107

3.1. Water consumption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1116

3.1.1. Dry cooling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1116
3.1.2. Dust cleaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1116
3.1.3. CSP-desalination cogeneration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1117
3.2. Heat transfer fluid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1118
3.3. Thermal energy storage (TES) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1118
3.3.1. Thermocline system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1119
3.3.2. Sensible heat storage system (SHSS). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1119
3.3.3. Latent heat storage system (LHSS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1120
3.3.4. Combined system and cascade latent heat storage system (CLHSS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1121
3.3.5. Sizing strategies and cost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1122
3.4. Heat receiver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1122
3.4.1. Receiver system configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1122
3.4.2. High-temperature photothermal absorber materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1124
3.5. Environmental impacts and commercial viability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1125
4. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1126
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1126

1. Introduction
Dearth of electrical energy as well as environmental pollution
are two of the most critical challenges our society faces in recent
years, especially in the developing countries. According to Inter-
national Energy Agency's (IEA) World Energy Outlook 2013, global
energy demand will increase by one third from 2011 to 2035, and
energy-related CO2 emission will rise by 20% to 37.2 Gtonne [1]. In
this context, the study and application of renewable and sustain-
able energy becomes urgent. Among various types of renewable
energy sources, solar energy is promising due to its large energy
potential and clean nature. As a simple estimation, the energy
from the sun to the earth in 1 h is 4.3  1011 GJ, which is more than
the total energy consumed globally in 2001 (4.1  1011 GJ) [2].
However, the solar energy received by the planet is not evenly
distributed [3]; major desert regions in the world have the highest
potential for solar energy because of high Direct Normal Irradiance
(DNI) [4]. The solar energy received by the worldwide desert
regions within 6 h is roughly estimated more than the energy
consumed by humankind in a year [5]. To put it another way,
electricity produced by covering 1% of the area of the Sahara
desert with solar thermal plants is enough for the world annual
power consumption [6]. Fig. 1 shows the solar energy received by
desert regions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Spain,
Australia, Southwestern of the United States, Southwestern of
China, border of China and Mongolia, and India with highest DNI
(41800 kW h/m2/y) compared to other areas in the world.
Besides extensive exposure to sunlight, the desert regions also
have mostly sunny weather with quite low rain precipitation, low
population density and large land availability, which enable the
possibility of large scale solar energy projects [7].
Currently concentrating solar power (CSP) and solar photovoltaic
(PV) are the two main technologies to utilize solar energy. CSP
system uses mirrors or lenses to concentrate energy in sunlight and
then employs a heat transfer fluid (HTF) to transport the heat to
turbines for power production. PV directly converts solar energy to
electricity using solar cells [8]. The disadvantage of PV cell is its
efficiency decreases as ambient temperature increases [9]. Power
production in cloudy days and at night is also a problem. However,
thermal energy storage (TES) system can be integrated with CSP
systems to deliver dispatchable power on demands regardless the
time or weather conditions. Incorporation of TES with CSP sig-
nificantly adds value of the system in regards with energy and grid
services. Moreover, CSP system is more suitable for large scale
applications (4100 MW) because it generates electrical power
using conventional turbines [7].
A bibliometric analysis of the publications on concentrating
solar power systems, sub-systems and components since 1990 has
been carried out. The data were based on the online version of the
Web of Science Core Collection. “Concentrating solar power” was

Fig. 1. Solar annual direct normal irradiation (DNI) across the world (unit: kW h/m2/year) (SolarGIS © 2015 GeoModel Solar).
1108 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131
Fig. 2. Bibliometric analysis of the publications on CSP related topics along with
cumulative CSP systems installed on annual basis.
Fig. 3. Various CSP technologies along with their installed ratios.
used as keywords to search and the number of publications in the
past  25 years (Fig. 2) clearly reveals that there is a significant
and unprecedented growth of research around the world on the
CSP areas. Even though the CSP related research was evident from
the early 90s, the number of publications was only around 100 per
year up to the year 2005. However, the number of publications
jumped to 4700 every year after 2010 indicating the interest and
funding support from various agencies. As seen from Fig. 2, the
installed capacity of the CSP systems stands above 2500 MW with
more additional capacity after 2010.
At present, Spain and the United States are the only two
countries with significant installed CSP capacity with respectively
about 57.9% and 40.1% of the total 1220 MW installed CSP capacity
in the world in 2011 [10]. The global CSP installed capacity
increased more than 600 MW within two years from 604 MW in
2009 [11]. The United States used to be the only major player until
2007 when Spain joined the CSP market. The energy supply
security is a critical factor for Spain to build CSP plants. Because
Spain is highly dependent on fossil fuel imports, and CSP is a high
potential source to diverse the energy sources and increase the
share of domestic energy supply [11]. The IEA set a target of
1089 GW global installed CSP capacity by 2050, which provides
4770 TWh annually with an average capacity factor of 50% (4380 h
per year) [12], or 11.3% of the estimated global electricity pro-
duction [13]. From the environmental protection perspective, the
European Union (EU) sets a target of 80–95% reduction of EU
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 compared to that in
1990 [14]. Therefore CSP technology is strongly supported by the
EU governments because of its clean nature [15].
With the aim to assess the potential technical challenges rela-
ted to CSP in desert regions, the following questions are discussed
in detail in the subsequent sections: What is the current status of
CSP in desert regions? What technical challenges does the CSP
technology have in the long term? Can the water availability issue
in semi-arid and arid regions be resolved? What are the advan-
tages of molten-salt HTFs? What is the status of heat receiver
development? Is TES a mature technology so far? What are the
commercial viability and environmental impact of CSP installation
in the long term?.
2. CSP in desert regions
2.1. Overview of CSP
CSP technology dates back to 1970s, but most of the commer-
cial CSP installations were made in the last decade particularly in
Spain and the United States [16,17]. Four commonly used types of
CSP technology are shown in Fig. 3: parabolic trough collector
(PTC), linear Fresnel reflector (LFR), solar power tower (SPT) and
parabolic dish systems (PDS). PTC and LFR are line-focused tech-
nologies focusing the sun-light to a line of receivers typically
oriented in the north-south direction, whereas SPT and PDS are
point-focused technologies focusing the sun-light to a point where
the receiver is located. Currently PTC occupies more than 82% of
the global CSP installations. However, most recent CSP installa-
tions in the United States, including the world's largest CSP plant
Ivanpah Solar Power Tower (Ivanpah Dry Lake, CA) commissioned
in 2014, are SPT systems. [18]. The main reason for the present
trend of installing SPT systems is the potential enhancement in
efficiency of converting heat into electricity with SPT, and SPT is
also more suitable for achieving very high temperatures [19]. The
only disadvantage of SPT is that the initial installation cost is high
compared to other CSP technologies [18]. Table 1 shows more
details about the costs and other characteristics of all the CSP
technologies.
With regard to constraints of CSP installation, key factors are
water availability particularly in desert regions, electricity trans-
mission and energy supply security [15,20]. Large amount of water
is needed for CSP cooling and mirror cleaning, but the water
availability is very restricted in desert regions [21]. Energy supply
security is a serious issue, particularly when considering the
inherent vulnerability in electricity imports from other countries.
A short power disruption could cause more than 10 $/kW h loss
and it is unrecoverable because electricity cannot be stored [22].
2.2. CSP in Southwest of the United States
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored two inde-
pendent studies in 2012 to investigate the potential of large scale
solar deployment. Both the SunShot Vision and the Renewable
Electricity Futures illustrate that solar could make significant
contribution for the U.S. electricity over the following 20–40 years
[23]. Southwestern part of the United States is particularly suitable
for CSP plants because of abundant solar energy availability as
shown in Fig. 4(a) [24,25]. In the SunShot scenario, about 78 GW
CSP systems are expected to be installed in the southwestern
region by 2050 [23].
CSP development has made great progress in U.S. through long-
term and sustainable investments by the DOE and industry part-
ners. More than 13 GW CSP installed capacity are already in
operation and five most innovative plants in the world will be
 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131 1109

completed by the end of 2014 [26]. National Renewable Energy
Laboratory (NREL) summarizes the CSP plants in operation in U.S.
by now [27]. Table 2 lists detailed information of the CSP plants in
operation. Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS) with parabolic
troughs is currently the second largest CSP facility in the world. It
has nine solar power plants in California's Mojave Desert and a
total installed gross capacity of 354 MW (net capacity: 314 MW)
[28]. Saguaro Power plant with 1.0 MW net capacity located in Red
Rock, AZ is another parabolic trough type CSP plant, commissioned
in 2006 [29]. Nevada Solar One is also a parabolic trough type CSP
plant with a net capacity of 72 MW and started operation from
2007 [30]. The 75 MW Martin Next Generation Solar Energy
Center located in Indiantown, Florida is the first hybrid facility in
the world to connect a solar facility to an existing combined-cycle
power plant. The 5 MW Kimberlina Solar Thermal Energy Plant
was completed in 2008 using Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector
technology. This power plant locates in Bakersfield, California [31].
The 5 MW Sierra SunTower is the first CSP tower facility in U.S.
which was unveiled in 2009 in Lancaster, California [32]. Other
small CSP plants in operation include 2 MW Holaniku at Keahole
Point, Hawaii, 2 MW and 1.5 MW Tooele Army Depot at
Tooele, Utah.
The five most innovative CSP plants are Solana, Genesis Solar,
Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, Crescent Dunes and
Mojave Solar One, all of which locate in southwestern region of
U.S. [26]. The first four plants are already operational and the last
one is still under construction. The 250 MW Solana plant uses
parabolic trough and has a six hour thermal storage unit. It locates

Table 1
Comparison of major CSP technologies along with operating temperature range [18,19].

PTC SPT LFR PDS

Capacity range (MW) 10–250 10–100 5–250 0.01–1

Operating temperature range 150–400 300–1200 150–400 300–1500
(°C)
Solar concentration ratio 50–90 600– 1000 35–170 o 3000
Solar to electricity efficiency 10–16 10–22 8–12 16–29
(%)
Relative cost Low High Low Very high
Power cycle Steam Rankine; Steam Rankine; Steam Rankine; Stirling Engine; Steam
Rankine;
Organic Rankine Brayton cycle (gas turbine) Organic Rankine Brayton cycle (gas turbine)
Commercial maturity High Medium Medium Low
Outlook for improvements limited Very significant significant High potential through
mass production
Advantages Long term proved reliability High efficiency; Simple structure and easy High efficiency;
and durability; construction;
Modular components; Compatible with Brayton cycle and Modular units; Modular units;
combined cycles burning oil or gas;
Compatible with combined Modular components; Compatible with combined No need for water cooling
cycles burning oil or gas; cycles burning oil or gas;
Disadvantages Relatively low efficiency; High maintenance and equipment Relatively low efficiency; limited Low commercial maturity;
costs; operational temperature
Limited operational Need water for cooling and cleaning No thermal storage
temperature; available
Complex structure;
Need water for cooling and
cleaning

Fig. 4. Solar average annual DNI in (a) U.S., (b) Spain, (c) Africa and Middle East, (d) Australia, (e) China and (f) India (SolarGIS © 2015 GeoModel Solar).
1110 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131

Fig. 4. (continued)

in Gila Bend, Arizona and started to produce power from 2013
[33]. The 250 MW Genesis Solar plant without thermal storage
consists of two 125 MW parabolic trough technology units. It
locates in Blythe, California and started operation in 2014 [34].
Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System with a gross capacity of
392 MW is the largest CSP project in the world by now. Ivanpah
Solar employs the state of the art power tower technology and
uses more than 173,500 software-controlled heliostats to track the
sun across the sky. It locates in Ivanpah Dry Lake, California and
started operation in 2014 [35]. The 110 MW Crescent Dunes power
tower project is the nation's first commercial scale solar power
tower facility with energy storage and the storage capacity is 10 h.
This plant in Tonopah, Nevada with 10,000 heliostats was
commissioned in 2013 [26,36]. The 250 MW Mojave Solar One
Table 2
Summary of operational CSP plants in various countries.

Country/Location Name Net capacity CSP type HTF TES Cooling method Commission date
(MW)

USA/Mojave Desert, CA Solar Energy Generating Sys- 314 PTC Therminol fluid 3 h capacity 2-tank direct for SEGS I; Undefined SEGS I 1984-EGS IX 1990
tems (SEGS) None for the othersa
USA/Indiantown, FL Martin Next Generation Solar 75 PTC Dowtherm A None Wet cooling 2010
Energy Centerb
USA/Red Rock, AZ Saguaro Power Plant 1 PTC Xceltherm 600 (solar field) and None Wet cooling 2006
n-pentane (ORC)
USA/Boulder City, NV Nevada Solar One 72 PTC Dowtherm A 0.5 h capacity; Storage type unknown Wet cooling 2007
USA/Bakersfield, CA Kimberlina Solar Thermal 5 LFR Water/steam None Undefined 2008
Energy Plant
USA/Lancaster, CA Sierra SunTowerc 5 SPT Water/steam None Wet cooling 2009
USA/Keahole Point, HI Holaniku 2 PTC Xceltherm 600 2 h capacity; storage type unknown Wet cooling 2009

X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131

USA/Tooele, UT Tooele Army Depot 1.5 PDS Helium None Closed-loop 2013
cooling
USA/Gila Bend, AZ Solana Generating Station 250 PTC Therminol VP-1 6 h capacity 2-tank indirect storage with Wet cooling 2013
molten salts
USA/Blythe, CA Genesis Solar Energy 250 PTC Therminol VP-1 None Dry cooling 2014
USA/Ivanpah Dry Lake, CA Ivanpah Solar Electric Gen- 377 SPT Water/steam None Dry cooling 2014
erating Systemd
USA/Tonopah, NV Crescent Dunes Solar Energye 110 SPT Molten salts 10 h capacity 2-tank direct storage with Hybrid cooling 2013
molten salts
USA/Harper Dry Lake, CA Mojave Solar Project 250 PTC Therminol VP-1 None Wet cooling 2014
Spain/Aldeire, Granada Andasol Solar Power Station 150 PTC Dowtherm A for AS-1 and AS-2; 7.5 h capacity 2-tank indirect storage Wet cooling AS-1 2008 – AS-3 2011
Thermal oil for AS-3 with Solar Salt for each of AS 1–3
Spain/Alvarado, Badajoz Alvarado I 50 PTC Biphenyl/Diphenyl oxide None Wet cooling 2009
Spain/San José del Valle, Cádiz Arcosol 50 50 PTC Biphenyl/Diphenyl oxide 7.5 h capacity 2-tank indirect storage Wet cooling 2011
with Solar Salt
Spain/Morón de la Frontera, Arenales 50 PTC Diphyl 7 h capacity 2-tank indirect storage with Wet cooling 2013
Sevilla Solar Salt
Spain/Alcázar de San Juan, Ciu- Aste Solar Power Station 100 PTC Dowtherm A 8 h capacity 2-tank indirect storage with Wet cooling 2012
dad Real Solar Salt
Spain/Olivenza, Badajoz Astexol II 50 PTC Thermal oil 8 h capacity 2-tank indirect storage with Wet cooling 2012
Solar Salt
Spain/Les Borges Blanques, Borges Termosolar 22.5 PTC Thermal oil None Wet cooling 2012
Lleida
Spain/Talarrubias, Badajoz Casablanca 50 PTC Biphenyl/Diphenyl oxide 7.5 h capacity 2-tank indirect storage Wet cooling 2013
with Solar Salt
Spain/Villena, Alicante Enerstar 50 PTC Thermal oil none Wet cooling 2013
Spain/Torre de Miguel Sesmero, Extresol 150 PTC Biphenyl/Diphenyl oxide 7.5 h capacity 2-tank indirect storage Wet cooling EX-1 and EX -2 2010 – EX-3
Badajoz with Solar Salt for each of EX 1-3 2012
Spain/Fuentes de Andalucía, Gemasolar Thermosolar Plantf 20 SPT Solar Salt 15 h capacity 2-tank direct with Solar Wet cooling 2011
Andalucía Salt
Spain/Palma del Río, Córdoba Guzmán 50 PTC Dowtherm A None Wet cooling 2012
Spain/Écija, Sevilla Helioenergy 100 PTC Thermal oil None Wet cooling Helioenergy 1 2011 -Helioe-
nergy 2 2012
Spain/Puerto Lápice, Ciudad Real Helios 100 PTC Thermal oil None Wet cooling 2012
Spain/Puertollano, Castilla-La Ibersol Ciudad Real 50 PTC Dowtherm A None Wet cooling 2009
Mancha
Spain/Posadas, Córdoba La Africana 50 PTC Undefined 7.5 h capacity 2-tank indirect storage Wet cooling 2012
with Solar Salt
Spain/La Garrovilla, Badajoz La Dehesa 50 PTC Biphenyl/Diphenyl oxide 7.5 h capacity 2-tank indirect storage Wet cooling 2011
with Solar Salt
Spain/Badajoz La Florida 50 PTC Biphenyl/Diphenyl oxide 7.5 h capacity 2-tank indirect storage Wet cooling 2010
with Solar Salt

1111
Spain/Lebrija, Sevilla Lebrija 1 50 PTC Therminol VP1 None Wet cooling 2011
 1112
Table 2 (continued )

Country/Location Name Net capacity CSP type HTF TES Cooling method Commission date
(MW)

Spain/Majadas de Tiétar, Cáceres Majadas I 50 PTC Biphenyl/Diphenyl oxide None Wet cooling 2010
Spain/Alcazar de San Juan, Ciu- Manchasol 100 PTC Biphenyl/Diphenyl oxide 7.5 h capacity 2-tank indirect storage Wet cooling 2011
dad Real with Solar Salt for each of MS 1–2
Spain/Morón de la Frontera, Morón 50 PTC Thermal oil None Wet cooling 2012
Seville
Spain/Olivenza, Badajoz Olivenza 1 50 PTC Thermal oil None Wet cooling 2012
Spain/Orellana, Badajoz Orellana 50 PTC Thermal oil None Wet cooling 2012
Spain/Palma del Río, Córdoba Palma del Río 100 PTC Biphenyl/Diphenyl oxide None Wet cooling 2011
Spain/Sevilla, Sanlúcar la Mayor Planta Solar 31 SPT Water/steam 1 h capacity; Storage type unknown for Wet cooling PS10 2007-PS20 2009
each of PS10-20
Spain/Calasparra, Murcia Puerto Errado 1 31.4 LFR Water/steam 0.5 h capacity one-tank thermocline Dry cooling PE1 2009-PE2 2012
Spain/Logrosán, Cáceres Solaben 200 PTC Thermal oil None Wet cooling 2012/2013

X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131

Spain/El Carpio, Córdoba Solacor 100 PTC Thermal oil None Wet cooling 2012
Spain/Sevilla, Sanlúcar la Mayor Solnova 150 PTC Thermal oil None Wet cooling 2009
Spain/San José del Valle, Cádiz Termesol 50 50 PTC Biphenyl/Diphenyl oxide 7.5 h capacity 2-tank indirect storage Wet cooling 2011
with Solar Salt
Spain/Navalvillar de Pela, Termosol 100 PTC Thermal oil 9 h capacity 2-tank indirect storage with Wet cooling 2013
Badajoz Solar Salt
Morocco/Ain Beni Mathar ISCC Ain Beni Matharg 20 PTC Therminol VP-1 None Wet cooling 2010
Morocco/Undefined eCare Solar Thermal Project 1 LFR Water/steam 2 h capacity steam drum Dry cooling 2014
Morocco/Ait Baha Airlight Energy Ait Baha Plant 3 PTC Air at ambient pressure 12 h capacity one-tank thermocline with Undefined 2014
packed bed
Algeria/Hassi R'mel ISCC Hassi R'mel 25 PTC Thermal oil None Dry cooling 2011
Egypt/Kuraymat ISCC Kuraymat 20 PTC Therminol VP-1 None Wet cooling 2011
Australia/Liddell, New South Liddell Power Station 9 LFR Water/steam None Dry cooling 2012
Walles
Australia/Jemalong, New South Jemalong Solar Thermal 1.1 SPT Molten salt 3 h capacity 2-tank direct storage with Dry cooling 2014
Wales Station molten salt
Australia/Lake Cargelligo, New Lake Cargelligo 3 SPT Water/steam Core graphite thermal storage technology Undefined 2011
South Wales
China/Beijing Dahan Power Plant 1 SPT Water/steam 1 h capacity two stages storage with Wet cooling 2012
saturated steam/oil
India/Gurgaon National Solar Thermal Power 1 PTC Therminol VP-1 Undefined 2012
Facility
India/Naukh, Rajasthan Godawari Solar Project 50 PTC Dowtherm A None Wet cooling 2013
India/Anantapur, Andhra Megha Solar Plant 50 PTC Xceltherm MK1 None Wet cooling 2014
Pradesh
India/Dhursar, Rajasthan Dhursar 125 LFR Undefined None Wet cooling 2014
India/Bikaner, Rajasthan ACME Solar Tower 2.5 SPT Water/steam None Wet cooling 2011

All information is from NREL website (http://www.nrel.gov/csp/solarpaces/) on Concentrating Solar Power Project Profiles.
a
TES for SEGS I was damaged by fire in 1999 and was not replaced.
b
The first hybrid facility in the world connects a solar facility to an existing combined-cycle power plant.
c
The first SPT plant in USA.
d
The largest CSP plant in the world.
e
The nation's first SPT plant with TES.
f
The first high-temperature solar receiver with molten salt.
g
The project consist of a 470 MW hybrid power plant composed of a combined cycle and a 20 MW solar thermal system.
 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131
facility uses parabolic trough technology and locates in Harper Dry
Lake, California (100 miles northeast of Los Angeles), started in
December 2014[37].
2.3. CSP in Spain
Spain is one of the global leaders in CSP installation and major
part of Spain has high DNI ( 41800 kW h/m2/year) as shown in
Fig. 4(b). All the plants in operation in Spain are listed in Table 2. In
2008, the total CSP energy production capacity of Spain was only
60 MW, but it increased by 30 times to 1800 MW power genera-
tion capacity by the end of 2012 [38]. The tremendous growth of
CSP in Spain is not only due to the efforts in the R&D sector, but
also due to the measures taken by the government such as feed-in
tariffs and the policies which require a portion of solar power in
their energy mix [39].
Spain is also the pioneer in utilizing thermal energy storage
technologies for night-time power generation. Thermal energy
storage capability of CSP systems employing molten-salts has been
commercially proven after the launch of Andasol-1 trough plant in
Spain at the end of 2008 [40]. Presently, almost half of the CSP
plants in Spain have thermal energy storage capability. One of the
special features of CSP designs in Spain is that almost all the plants
are constructed to provide 50 MW power output. This is due to a
cap in the national support scheme, which does not allow larger
turbine sizes [38].
Most of the CSP plants in Spain use water, thermal oils or
organics as HTF. Currently there are seven commercial CSP plants
in the world using water/steam as the HTF. Among these, four
plants are in Spain (Puerto errado 1, PS10 solar power tower, PS20
solar power tower and Puerto errado 2) [17]. Biphenyl/Diphenyl
oxide pair is also used as HTF in commercial CSP plants located in
Spain. The first solar thermal plant with this organic liquid as HTF
was commissioned in 2009 at Badajoz, Spain and was named as
Alvarado 1. Currently eight CSP plants in Spain are operating with
Biphenyl/Diphenyl oxide.
2.4. CSP in MENA (Middle East and North Africa)
2.4.1. North African countries
Very high solar DNI and land availability existing in the Sahara
Desert in North Africa make this area promising for the CSP
applications. Fig. 4(c) shows the annual DNI in the MENA area for
the year 2002. Several North African countries including Morocco,
Algeria and Egypt have made large progress in solar energy utili-
zation during 2007–2009 as participants of the DISTRES (Promo-
tion and consolidation of all RTD activities for renewable dis-
tributed generation technologies in the Mediterranean region)
project funded by FP6-INCO (the 6th Framework Program for
Research and Development of the EU as an International Co-
ordination action) with a primary interest on the electricity pro-
duced from solar energy [41]. The projects constructed in these
countries can serve as good paradigms for other areas of the world.
The CSP plants currently in operation in these countries are listed
in Table 2.
Morocco has a high rate dependence on imports of crude oil,
coal and electricity. CSP plants are expected to play significant role
in achieving this country's target to increase energy mix of
renewable energy [42]. Recently Morocco announced a $ 9 billion
plan to construct integrated solar energy projects with combined
cycle units in five potential sites (Sebhate Tah, Foum Al Quad, Ain
Beni Mathar, Ourzazate, and Boujdour). DNI in these sites are
between 2140 and 2642 kW h/m2/year. The total installed capacity
will reach 2000 MW and net estimated production might reach
4400 GW h/year in 2020. The first 472 MW integrated power plant
in Ain Beni Mathar consisting of 20 MW solar energy field with
1113
parabolic trough arrays was commissioned in 2010. The last pro-
ject is supposed to begin operation in 2019 [42,43].
Algeria is the largest country of the Mediterranean region and
one of the countries with abundant natural gas production in
Africa. Currently the Integrated Solar Combined Cycle (ISCC) plant
in Hassi R'mel is in operation starting from 2011 [44]. The plant
combines a 25 MW parabolic trough arrays with a 130 MW com-
bined cycle gas turbine plant [45]. The New Energy Algeria (NEAL),
a joint venture of Sonatrach Sonelgaz and SIM, developed this
plant and Sonatrach will buy all the power produced estimated as
1250 GW h/year [42].
Egypt has DNI ranging between 1970 and 3200 kW h/m2/year
from north to south across the country [42]. The first ISCC plant in
Kuraymat (100 km south of Cairo) started electricity production
from 2011 [46]. Kuraymat has DNI of 2400 kW h/m2/year and
locates close to the River Nile [42]. This power plant has capacity
of 140 MW, 20 MW of which is from parabolic trough arrays [46].
2.4.2. DESERTEC
DESERTEC concept to use solar energy in Sahara Desert to
provide electricity to Europe and MENA countries was created in
2003 by the German-based Trans-Mediterranean Renewable
Energy Cooperation (TREC) [47]. Within this scheme large scale
CSP systems, PV arrays and wind farms would be constructed
across the more accessible southern and northern of the Sahara
desert as shown in Fig. 5 [47]. A feasibility study shows that a
power grid of 100 GW including 25% solar power and 53% wind
power at the cost of $ 400 million can supply 15% of European
demand for electricity by 2050 [48–50].
If successfully completed, the DESERTEC project can not only
improve the competitiveness of the Europe-MENA power system
by significant CO2 emission reduction and cost saving, but also
enhance the energy supply security of participating countries.
Countries involved in this project can be distinguished as renew-
ables super producers, importers and countries with balanced
renewables and demand. In this mutual reliance situation, no one
country is completely dependent on another but instead each
country is reliant on the whole system. From a political and geo-
political point of view, the relations of the involved countries are
also enhanced [51].
In 2009a consortium, DESERTEC Industrial Initiative was signed
by 12 initial companies from Europe, mainly from Germany,
including Siemens, Deutsche Bank, ABB, Munich RE, RWE, E.ON
and Abengoa Solar etc. to commercialize this project [52]. The
participation of major industrial companies and energy producers
showed a stronger determination that the DESERTEC project was
not just a dream. However, 47 out of 50 shareholders had left the
consortium in 2014. Only Saudi Arabia's ACWA Power IPO-ACWA.
SE, Germany's RWE and China's State Grid decided to stay and
continue the project on a much smaller scale. High cost, political
risks in north African countries, and the development of solar
power in Europe were reasons for the major shareholders such as
Siemens, Bosch, E.ON and Bilfinger to quit [53]. Risk of being a
target of terrorist attacks, extensive and challenging economic and
political cooperation between countries, extreme high demand of
water to clean dust off panels and for turbine coolant in deserts
are also concerned as major obstacles [54,55].
2.5. CSP in Australia
Australia is abundant of solar energy in the large inland desert
regions with high temperatures and low precipitation year round
[56]. A large part of Australia has DNI above 2200 kW h/m2/year as
shown in Fig. 4(d) [57]. Port Augusta region in South Australia,
north-west Victoria, and central and north-west New South Wales
are claimed to be locations with high potential for CSP plants due
1114 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131
Fig. 5. Large scale CSP systems, PV arrays and wind farms proposed for the DESERTEC network in MENA (Source: DESERTEC Foundation) [47].
to high DNI and ease of connection to grids [58,59]. Australia also
has the ability to construct CSP plants at competitive cost because
of its well-developed heavy industries and experience with ther-
mal power stations [60]. The CSP plants currently in operation in
Australia are listed in Table 2.
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization
(CSIRO) made a prediction that solar energy would be responsible
for 30% of Australia's energy supply by 2050 [61]. Currently a
9.3 MW CSP-coal hybrid plant is in operation at Liddell Power
Station, and another 44 MW CSP-coal plant was launched in 2011
at Kogan Creek but will not be commissioned until 2015 [62,63].
However, no standalone large scale CSP plant exists in Australia
until now because of very limited financial support from the
government [64]. The two planned CSP plants of 250 MW Solar-
Dawn and 40 MW SolarOasis were withdrawn in 2012 and 2013
separately because of funding issues [57]. Another new Solar
Flagships Program (SRP) announced in 2009 may encourage
development of CSP in Australia. The $ 1.6 billion program aims to
construct four solar power plants (PV and CSP) with a total
capacity of 1000 MW during 2009–2015, at least one of which will
be CSP plant [64]. Even though the SRP program didn't go well in
the first four years because of failure to secure funding, it was back
on track in 2013 with the effort of AGL Energy (one of the “Big 3”
utilities in Australia) to bridge the funding gap. The first 155 MW
PV plant of the four solar power plants is anticipated to be com-
pleted by 2015 [65,66].
2.6. CSP in China and Mongolia
2.6.1. China
While only 2.8% of the total energy consumed in China was
from renewable energy in 2005 [67], the National People's Con-
gress of China passed a law to replace 15% of the total energy
consumption with renewable resources by 2020 [68], and the
Chinese government committed to reduce 40–45% CO2 emission
per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020 against the 2005
level [69]. In 2007 China has almost three-quarters of the energy
from coal-fired power stations [70], and the large scale coal
mining and combustion causes serious GHG emissions as well as
health and life threatening consequences [71,72]. China was con-
sidered to be responsible for two-thirds of the global increase in
anthropogenic CO2 emissions as the second largest emitters in the
world in 2007 [73] and the total direct GHG emissions of China
was estimated to be 7456.12 Mtonne CO2 equivalent (CO2-eq) [74].
In China's plan to achieve a sustainable future, solar energy is
expected to make relatively minor contribution of less than 1% of
China's total renewable energy capacity by 2020 [75]. However,
China's decision was argued as a mistake and should be recon-
sidered particularly considering the enormous solar potential for
large scale plants in northwestern and southwestern parts of
China [76]. In fact, power generation up to 100 GW through solar
thermal has been suggested possible by 2025 in China [70].
Fig. 4(e) shows the average annual DNI for China. As the DNI
should be 45 kW h/m2/day for CSP to be economical, the Tibet
Autonomous Region, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, central areas of
Inner Mongolia and parts of Qinghai Province are potential sites
for CSP plants [76–78]. Nevertheless, these areas are all far from
the eastern region with the most population and highest power
demands. This problem can be practically resolved if China com-
pletes its extensive smart grid, which is slowly under construction
via the “Power Transmission from the West to the East” plan. The
smart grid includes the development of a new 800 kV ultrahigh-
voltage direct current (UHVDC) and 1000 kV ultrahigh-voltage
alternating current (UHVAC) transmission systems [79]. With
respect to the land availability, it was predicted that China can
match its net installed electricity capacity of 602,570 GW in 2006
by utilizing only 1.2% of the desert areas in Tibet, Inner Mongolia
and Qinghai [76].
Although China has become the largest solar water heater
producer and user with about 150 million square meters instal-
lation by 2010 [75], the development of CSP plant in China is still
in an early stage. In order to reduce dependence on imported
technologies, China decided to fund domestic research on CSP
development. China's first and only MW class CSP tower plant in
 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131
Fig. 6. HVDC transmission cables proposed for the GOBITEC network in Northeastern Asia (Source: www.hss.or.kr/A1189English.html) [85].
operation named “Dahan” was funded in 2006 and started power
production in 2012 [80]. The Dahan plant with a rated power of
1.5 MW locates in Yanqing County in the northwestern of Beijing
and connects with power grid line in Yanqing district. It has a TES
system with capacity of 1 h full load operation. The solar collectors
and power station cover 0.16 km2 land. The mean annual effi-
ciency of the receiver is 90% and about 8 t/h superheated steam
(2.8 MPa, 400 °C) can be generated. Water/steam is employed as
HTF in this plant and thermal oil is used as heat storage media.
Dahan is expected to generate 2.7 million kW h electricity
annually and operate for 20 years [81,82]. If it is assessed suc-
cessful, it will be expanded to 5–10 MW by 2015 [83]. The GHG
emission of the Dahan plant was evaluated as 0.04 kg CO2-eq/MJ in
the 20 years operation life, 95% of which is from construction and
only 5% is caused in the maintenance and operation. The total GHG
mitigation of this plant was estimated as 41.7 ktonne CO2-eq [83].
As for daily operation and maintenance, 1 t of water is needed per
day for collectors cleaning; 35 t of water is used per day for cir-
culating cooling; 14 t of water is consumed per day as chemical
feed; 30 t of water is used per day for auxiliary cooling; 20 t of
water per day is consumed as domestic water; and 100 t of water
is consumed by the turbo-generator system [83]. Besides Dahan
plant, China is projected to increase the CSP plants capacity to
1 GW by 2015 and 3 GW by 2020, most of which will be based on
SPT technology [84]. The plants under construction or planned are
1 MW Badaling pilot project, 12 MW (short-term)/300 MW (long
term) project in Xinjiang, 50 MW project in Tibet, 100 MW project
in Sichuan Abazhou, 100 MW project in Golmud, 100 MW project
in Ningxia, 100 MW project in Gansu, 100 MW project in Qinghai
and 2000 MW project in Shanxi [84].
2.6.2. GOBITEC
Inspired by the DESERTEC in MENA, GOBITEC project in
Northeastern Asia was proposed in 2009 to harness the solar
energy in the Gobi desert across the border of China and Mongolia
[85]. 1 GW electricity was expected to be produced and delivered
to Mongolia, China, North Korea, South Korea and Japan through
6000 km HVDC transmission cables as shown in Fig. 6 [86]. Large
scale CSP plants with parabolic trough solar concentrators and
molten salt storage facility were planned in the original GOBITEC
proposal. Although Mongolia have potential avenues for economic
1115
development as the host country of this CSP project, an anon-
ymous Mongolian government leader expressed hesitation of
integrating CSP with the country's current electricity infra-
structure in an interview. Enormous amount of cooperation and
coordination between countries involved and lacking of experi-
ence with CSP are the major concerns [7].
Potential benefits of the GOBITEC project include several dif-
ferent aspects. Despite of being clean and low carbon, solar energy
obtained from this project also merits energy security of the
involved countries particularly for Japan and Korea, which both
have few domestic sources of energy and highly dependent on
imported fossil fuels from monopoly suppliers of Russia and the
Middle East [86,87]. Energy cooperation, policy cooperation and
even political integration can also be accelerated between the
Northeastern Asian countries. The last but not the least, this pro-
ject offers an opportunity to engage North Korea to become a non-
nuclear and cooperative energy venture [7,86].
At the moment GOBITEC is still a fantasy due to many obstacles.
The first difficulty lies in financing. As large scale CSP system is not
included in the short term renewable energy development plan of
Mongolia, investment of GOBITEC has to rely exclusively on foreign
funding from private companies, investors and international
organizations [88]. Land availability is another serious issue.
Southern region of Mongolia is rich in mining sources and Mon-
golian government has issued long-term mining licenses covering
most of the Gobi area to international joint ventures [88]. Even if
the GOBITEC project is successfully constructed, the reliability of
the system is critical for involved countries particularly for those
with small net electricity capacity such as Mongolia and North
Korea. An unexpected disruption or failure of the system may
completely damage the vulnerable transmission infrastructure
from Ulaanbaatar to Pyongyang and put the relations between
countries in risk [88].
2.7. CSP in India
Most parts of India have about 300 sunshine days year round
since it locates close to the equator [89]. Fig. 4(f) shows a map of
solar DNI in India. India has finalized its long-term schedule to
enhance the solar power generating capacity: 20 GW by 2020,
100 GW by 2030 and 200 GW by 2050 [89]. This includes energy
1116 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131
produced by both CSP and PV cells. According to Jawaharlal Nehru
National Solar Mission (JNNSM) of the Indian government, 50%
would be from CSP technology out of the targeted 20 GW grid
connected solar power by 2020 [90].
Northwestern of India, particularly the states of Rajasthan and
Gujarat, are the primary locations having huge potential for CSP
plants (DNI42000 kW h/m2/year) [90]. Most of the currently
operating CSP plants in India locate in these two states. Presently,
India has a total of almost 230 MW CSP power capacity from five
operating CSP plants. Another four CSP plants with a total capacity
of 275 MW are under construction. The five CSP plants currently in
operation include three PTC plants, one SPT plant and one LFR
plant. The three PTC plants are 1 MW National Solar Thermal
Power Facility in Gurgaon (2012), 50 MW Godawari Solar Project
in Naukh, Rajasthan (2013) and 50 MW Megha Solar Plant in
Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh (2014). The SPT plant is 2.5 MW ACME
Solar Tower in Bikaner, Rajasthan (2011) and the LFR plant is
125 MW project in Dhursar, Rajasthan (2014) [91]. Dhursar plant is
the world's largest LFR facility. The main advantage of LFR tech-
nology is the low amount of required land area, but the efficiency
of LFR is less compared to other CSP technologies [91]. Detailed
information of the five plants are listed in Table 2. The four plants
under construction are 50 MW Abhijeet Solar Project in Jaisalmer,
Rajasthan, 100 MW Diwakar project in Askandra, Rajasthan,
25 MW Gujarat Solar One project in Kutch, Gujarat and 100 MW
KVK Energy Solar project in Askandra, Rajasthan [91].
3. Technical challenges
3.1. Water consumption
Large amount of water is required for CSP plants, but the
availability of water is usually quite restricted in arid or semi-arid
regions which are the best sites for CSP construction. For current
CSP systems, the water requirement is estimated between 3 and
3.5 m3/kW h, 95% of which is attributed to cooling tower and 5% is
consumed for mirror cleaning [92]. Development of dry cooling
and mirror cleaning methods as well as other technologies are
necessary to minimize the use of water in CSP plants.
3.1.1. Dry cooling
Currently, most commercialized CSP plants are integrated with
conventional steam Rankine cycle for power generation. A key step
of the power generation in Rankine cycle is the cooling of exhaust
steam, which needs to be condensed and returned to the steam
generator. The lower the condensation temperature is, the higher
the conversion efficiency of the power block becomes [93,94]. Wet
cooling can provide higher conversion efficiency than dry cooling
because the exhaust steam with wet cooling can be cooled faster
to a lower temperature [95]. So that a CSP plant with wet cooling
can offer better thermal performance [96]. Nevertheless, the most
suitable regions to build a CSP plant are generally desert regions
with high DNI and water scarcity [97]. Even if evaporative cooling
systems are currently deployed in the majority of operating CSP
plants in Spain, this solution will not be applicable for a large scale
CSP development in arid regions [98]. As a result, a reasonable
choice of the cooling system for a CSP plant is of particular interest
for solar engineering community.
Several studies by National Renewable Energy Laboratory
(NREL) showed that dry cooling could save more than 90% of water
consumption [99]. Liqreina and Qoaider [100] calculated the
average monthly water saving by implementing dry cooling in
comparison with a similar power plant operating with wet cooled
power block, and concluded that dry cooling can save more than
90% of water consumption. On the other hand, dry cooling needs a
bigger solar field than that for wet cooling with the same power
output, and it results in higher investment costs [101]. As a con-
sequence, a trade-off between all the cooling options should be
made for each specific site to know whether to use dry cooling or
not [102].
Dry cooling method is governed by the dry bulb air tempera-
ture. The heat rejection performance of the dry cooling system
under varying ambient conditions and the thermodynamic per-
formance characteristics of the turbine are closely interrelated
[103]. Dry cooling systems can be realized with direct or indirect
layout. In direct systems, exhaust steam from the turbine is
transported to an air-cooled condenser (ACC), as shown in
Fig. 7(a). In this system, an air exchanger is used for heat rejection;
natural draft or forced draft towers can be installed. Heat transfer
mainly occurs as sensible heat and its properties depend on
weight, specific heat of the air and temperature variation during
the cooling process under a constant specific humidity (i.e., the
amount of water vapor present in the air). The steam condenses
inside fine tubes that are typically arranged in an A-frame con-
figuration and then cooled by air blown across the finned surfaces.
The condensation of the steam turbine exhaust plus auxiliary
cooling is estimated to represent 5% of the condensing heat load
[104]. Despite the inefficiencies of dry-cooling systems, these
systems provide environmental benefit when installed in the arid
and semi-arid environments with regard to lowering water con-
sumption and using fewer chemicals for disinfecting and cleaning
of hydraulic circuits. Ivanpah 1, 2 and 3 plants in the Mojave
Desert, California [97] are projects which demonstrate the suc-
cessful implementation of this system.
An alternative approach of dry cooling is represented by the
indirect layout. Particular interests are the so-called Heller sys-
tems, as shown in Fig. 7(b), which is an improved version of direct
dry cooling system. In this type of system, thermal power is dis-
sipated by heat exchange in a condenser through a closed-loop
water cooling process. The heat that absorbs the water is trans-
ferred to the atmosphere through a tube heat exchanger. Air
movement can be achieved through a natural or mechanical sys-
tem, where air is used as a secondary cooling system. In the closed
water loop, most of the energy is transferred through convection
and a small amount is transferred through evaporation, saving 97%
of the water used in the wet cooling system [97]. In this system,
the flow of cooling water never comes into contact with the
cooling air. However, the main problem with the system is the
greater initial capital investment and increased operational costs.
The crucial design of Heller system is the barometric condenser,
where the steam is condensed directly by a spray of cooling water.
Thereby it is possible to achieve very low (0.5 °C) terminal tem-
perature differences (TTD) compared with that of conventional
surface condensers (3–4 °C) [105].
Driven by increasing interests of dry cooling, several approa-
ches for the enhancement of dry cooling have been proposed and
the hybrid dry–wet cooling system is the most promising [106–
109]. A hybrid cooling system involves the operation of two sys-
tems in parallel: dry and wet cooling, as shown in Fig. 7(c). Gen-
erally, the bybird system operates by the dry cooling mode when
the ambient temperature is not high; but in summer days, the
performance of the hybrid system can be enhanced by routing a
portion of the exhaust steam from the turbine to a separate wet
cooling system, which only rejects a portion of the total dissipated
heat [97]. It is also reported that a hybrid system can save up to
80% of the annual water consumption of an evaporative cooling
tower [110].
3.1.2. Dust cleaning
Dust accumulation on heliostat mirrors or on solar collectors
installed at different tilt angles is an important problem in CSP
 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131
Fig. 7. Dry cooling system layout for (a) Direct dry cooling system, (b) Indirect dry
cooling system (Heller system) and (c) Hybrid dry–wet cooling system (adapted
from cornerstonemag.net).
plants. Almost all the commercial CSP plants in the world have
been installed in arid or semi-arid regions with high DNI. Hence
the possibility of dust accumulation is very high. It is obvious that
the reflectance of the heliostat mirrors or the transmittance of
solar absorbers reduce due to the dust accumulation and so as the
efficiency of the CSP system.
A number of studies have reported the effect of dust accumu-
lation on solar devices in semi-arid and arid regions. According to
the Solar Power World, 40% of solar power conversion decreases
because of a dust layer of 1/7 ounce per square yard [111]. Optical
performance of CSP collectors or mirrors directly influences the
electricity cost. 1% decrease in reflectance leads to 1% increase in
levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) produced from the CSP systems
[111].
1117
Sayigh et al. [112] performed a study in Kuwait and found 64,
48, 38, 30 and 17% reduction in the transmittance of glass plates
tilted at angles 0, 15, 30, 45 and 60°, respectively, after 38 days of
exposure. El-Nasar et al. [113] studied the effect of dust accumu-
lation on evacuated-tube flat-plate type solar collectors installed
in the United Arab Emirates and reported a 70% reduction in the
collector performance, if the collectors were not cleaned for a
whole year. In 2014, Griffith et al. [114] have studied the effect of
dust accumulation on CSP mirrors in a candidate CSP site near
Kathu in the Northern Cape, South Africa and reported a mean rate
of loss of 0.5% per day in specular reflectivity for an exposure
period between 9 to 30 days. It was found that the reflectivity
losses for horizontal (top-facing) mirrors were almost two fold of
that of the mirrors tilted at 45°. Detailed information about the
impact of dust on the use of solar energy is described in a recent
review by Sarver et al. [115].
Cleaning the mirrors with water and detergent is the most
effective method, but the scarcity of water in desert locations
makes the water-cleaning an expensive method. Typically, 0.15 to
0.175 m3/kW h water is required for mirror cleaning in CSP sys-
tems [92]. As the number and size of commercial CSP plants
increase, the time-consuming and labor-intensive water cleaning
methods are given up these days in favor of automated cleaning
systems or self-cleaning glass technologies. Several methods have
been tested by researchers to develop alternative ways to clean the
heliostat mirrors or solar collectors with less or even without
water [116].
In 2014, Houda et al. [117] have investigated putting super-
hydrophobic coatings on CSP mirrors in order to create lotus effect
leading to self-cleaning, and anti-contamination properties. After
testing several super-hydrophobic materials, they reported that
poly (p-phenylene butylene) is the best polymer as super-
hydrophobic coatings on CSP mirrors. It has high melting point,
low absorbance, a refractive index close to 1 and high flexibility. In
another recent study of Hunter et al. [111], a low-cost, easy to
apply anti-dusting coating has been developed based on super-
hydrophobic functionalized nano-silica materials and polymer
binders.
3.1.3. CSP-desalination cogeneration
CSP-desalination cogeneration is an attractive operation mode
for new CSP development. Both power and fresh water are pro-
duced simultaneously, which not only reduces the cooling water
requirements of a CSP system because part of the heat from steam
is used to assist desalination, but also supplies fresh water to the
population in desert regions that face severe water deficits [118].
Among all the desert regions, MENA has the highest potential for
the application of CSP-desalination cogeneration technology
because of convenient access to seawater in the Mediterranean Sea
[119]. The ideal desalination plant location should not be over
20 m above sea level or more than 5 km away from the shore [19].
In fact, MENA region also has a great need for fresh water as it is
the most water scarce region due to high population growth rate,
urbanization, and natural water scarcity [120].
Despite the promising prospective, the desalination coupling
with CSP plant technology is still in an early stage [121]. Trieb et al.
were the first researchers to study the potential of CSP-
desalination cogeneration in MENA region [122,123]. The AQUA-
CSP Concentrating Solar Power for seawater desalination project
have provided a comprehensive database on technology options,
water demand, reserves and deficits in the MENA region [124].
Economic studies [125,126], modeling and optimization works
[119,127] of CSP-desalination plants and major barriers of intro-
ducing this technology [19] were also reported in the literature
recently.
1118 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131
Currently the most popular desalination technologies are
Reverse Osmosis (RO) using electrical power as the driving force,
multi-effect desalination (MED) and Multi-stage flash (MSF) using
thermal power as the driving force. RO and MED are the two most
promising desalination technologies for utility scale CSP-
desalination cogeneration plants [128,129]. MSF is excluded due
to high investment, and high power and cooling water require-
ments [19]. The total energy requirements of RO, MED and MSF are
estimated at 3.5–4.5, 4–4.5, and 14–25 kW h/m3 water, respec-
tively [130]. CSP-MED technology is more competitive and cheaper
compared to CSP-RO at large capacity (41000 m3/day) [131]. It is
also more thermodynamically efficient because of the replacement
of the condenser with an MED plant [126]. Besides, RO is highly
dependent on the effectiveness of water pre-treatment, MED
nevertheless can treat very saline water [19].
3.2. Heat transfer fluid
HTF is an essential component of a CSP plant as it transfers heat
concentrated by the receiver to steam generator. Presently, several
different types of HTFs are used in commercial CSP plants,
including air, water/steam, thermal oils, organics and molten salts
[16,17,132]. However, all of these materials have disadvantages as
HTFs. Ideally the HTF is expected to not only transfer heat as a
media in the CSP system, but also directly store heat in a thermal
energy storage (TES) tank without additional heat exchanger.
Several characteristics are desired for the ideal HTF. Low melting
temperature is needed to reduce the freezing risk. High thermal
stability temperature is required to increase the system efficiency.
Particularly the solar tower systems demand a thermal stability
temperature up to 700 °C. At high temperature the corrosion of
metal alloys which are used as container and pipe materials for the
HTF is a serious issue. Moreover, low viscosity is expected to
reduce the pumping power, and high specific heat capacity is
favorable to reduce size of the TES tanks. Cost is another important
criterion for practical applications [133,134].
Among the currently used HTFs, air is only used in one 1.5 MW
pre-commercial solar plant in Jülich, Germany [17]. The major
advantages of air are free cost and very low viscosity [135].
However, its thermal conductivity is relatively low [136]. High
temperature corrosion of alloys in air is not a severe issue. For
instance, Klöwer [137] tested twelve iron-aluminum-chromium
alloys with different mass contents in air at 1100 °C for 1008 h and
the mass change for these alloys were only in the range of 7 to
1.4 mg/cm2. Water/steam is used in seven commercial CSP plants.
Four plants are in Spain and three plants are in California, USA
[17]. Water/steam has low viscosity at high temperature, high
specific heat capacity and low thermal conductivity. High tem-
perature corrosion of nickel based Inconel alloys in steam is almost
negligible [138–140]. The main problem of using water/steam is
also the water scarcity in arid regions. Thermal oils including
mineral oil, silicone oil and synthetic oils have a narrow operating
temperature range between 200 and 400 °C [141]. For instance,
Xceltherm 600 (paraffinic mineral oil) is currently used in com-
mercial CSP systems and its thermal stability temperature is only
315 °C. Thermal conductivity of thermal oils is close to that of air
and steam. Cost of thermal oils is another issue as the price is
commonly around 3 to 5 $/kg [142]. Biphenyl (C12H10) and
Diphenyl oxide (C12H10O) pair is one organic HTF widely used in
several commercial CSP plants in Spain [17]. Biphenyl/Diphenyl
oxide has a limited working temperature range of 293–393 °C, low
viscosity, very low thermal conductivity and high cost ( 100 $/kg)
[132].
At the moment, salt mixtures seem to be the most promising
HTF candidates because of high thermal stability temperatures and
properties similar to steam at high temperatures [143]. Alkali
nitrate and nitrite mixtures have made the greatest progress by
now. Solar Salt (KNO3 40 wt%–NaNO3 60 wt%), Hitec (NaNO3
7 wt%–KNO3 53 wt%–NaNO2 40 wt%) and HitecXL (NaNO3 7 wt%–
KNO3 45 wt%–Ca(NO3)2 48 wt%) are three commercialized alkali
nitrate and nitrite mixtures. Solar Salt was firstly tested in the
10 MW Solar Two plant in U.S. in 1996, and then was employed as
HTF for the 17 MW commercial Gemasolar CSP plant (Solar TRES)
in Spain in 2011 [144]. Solar Salt is also used at the newest
100 MW Crescent Dunes CSP plant in U.S. [17]. Solar Salt has the
melting temperature of 220 °C and the thermal stability tem-
perature of 600 °C [40]. Its specific heat capacity is 1.5 kJ kg  1 K  1
at 600 °C [145] and the cost is about 0.5 $/kg [146]. The corrosion
rates of SS-304 and SS-316 in Solar Salt were reported to be
6–15 mm/year at 570 °C [147]. Hitec and HitecXL were developed
by Halotechnics Inc. and they are not yet used in commercial CSP
plants. The working temperature ranges of the two salt mixtures
are 142–535 °C and 120–500 °C, respectively [40]. Their viscosities
are similar to steam at high temperatures and the specific heat
capacities are 1.56 and 1.45 kJ kg  1 K  1 at 300 °C, respectively
[40]. The cost is around 1 $/kg for both salt mixtures [146]. Cor-
rosion rate of stainless steel in the two salt mixtures is comparable
to that in Solar Salt [147,148]. For example, SS 321 was reported to
have a corrosion rate of 2 μm/year with Hitec at 570 °C, and SS 304
and SS 316 were reported to have corrosion rates of 6 to
10 μm/year with HitecXL at the same temperature [147]. More
works have been reported in order to improve the thermal stabi-
lity range of the nitrate and nitrite mixtures by adding LiNO3 [149–
151]. However, the cost of LiNO3 is relatively high (  4.3 $/kg) and
not any mixture has been reported to meet all the HTF require-
ments. Other nitric salts based HTFs include Sandia Mix
(NaNO3 9–18 wt%–KNO3 40–52 wt%–LiNO3 13–21 wt.%–Ca(NO3)2
20–27 wt%) developed by Bradshaw et al. [152] at the Sandia
National Laboratories and SS-500 (NaNO3 6 wt%–KNO3 23 wt%–
LiNO3 8 wt%–CsNO3 44 wt%–Ca(NO3)2 19 wt%) developed by
Halotechnics Inc. [153]. The working temperatures are 95–500 and
65–500 °C, respectively.
Although most of the currently investigated salt mixtures for
HTF are based on nitrates and nitrites, worldwide nitrate salt
production is restricted [154]. In this context, alternative HTFs
made from inexpensive and earth abundant materials are being
intensively investigated. Carbonate salts were recently studied
[155] and one LiNaK carbonate salt (LiCO3 32.1 wt%–Na2CO3
33.4 wt%–K2CO3 34.5 wt%) was reported to have a working tem-
perature range of 400–850 °C, low viscosity and low cost around
1.3 $/kg [156]. In an ongoing project, Reddy et al. [157] are working
on the development of alkali-fluoride and carbonate salt mixtures
(for example, LiF-NaF-K2CO3) as the HTF with a working tem-
perature range of 400–900 °C. Researchers in another ongoing
project recently proposed a chloride salt eutectic mixture (NaCl
7.5 wt%–KCl 23.9 wt%–ZnCl2 68.6 wt%) as one potential HTF [158].
The melting temperature of the ternary chloride mixture is about
850 °C. The viscosity is reported to be 0.325 Pa s at 300 °C and the
thermal conductivity is about 0.81 W/(m K) in the temperature
range of 300 and 600 °C. The cost of this ternary salt mixture is
below 1 $/kg. Besides molten salts, in an ongoing project at UCLA
and UC Berkeley, several binary mixtures of liquid metals includ-
ing Cd-Bi, Sn-Bi, Bi-Zn and Ca-Cu are being investigated for
potential use as HTF for CSP applications [159].
3.3. Thermal energy storage (TES)
TES system is one of the most distinguishing features of CSP
with respect to other renewable energy technologies like wind
power or photovoltaics, since it can smooth out the short-term
transients and to extend the daily operation of CSP plants during
the late afternoon and evening hours [160,161]; in other words,
 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131 1119

Fig. 8. Three generation TES systems. (a) The first generation two-tank TES with HTF only, (b) The second generation one-tank TES with HTF only, (c) The third generation
one-tank TES with HTF and a loosely packed solid material and (d) The third generation one-tank TES with HTF and an embedded heat storage material (© 2011 Li, Van Lew,
Karaki, Chan, Stephens, O'Brien. Originally published in [166] under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/20979).

TES is highly dispatchable with electricity demand. TES has several
advantages compared to mechanical or chemical storage technol-
ogies, such as low capital costs and high operating efficiency. A TES
prototype system incorporated into the Solar Two project in
Daggett, CA demonstrated a round-trip efficiency greater than 97%
[162–164].
One TES system usually consists of three parts, the thermal
storage medium, the HTF and the containment system. The ther-
mal storage medium stores thermal energy either in the form of
sensible heat, latent heat, or a combination of both forms, or in the
form of reversible chemical reactions [165]. To date, sensible heat
materials are the most widely used storage medium in commercial
CSP systems, while latent heat or thermochemical materials are
still in development. HTF supplies and extracts heat from the
storage medium to the power generation block, and it has already
been discussed in Section 3.2. The containment system holds the
storage medium as well as the energy transfer equipment, and it
requires good thermal insulation from the surroundings.
TES system has been developed through three generations. The
first generation is called the direct HTF storage system with sto-
rage tanks, as shown in Fig. 8(a), one tank for hot fluid and the
other for cold fluid [163]. In this case, HTF itself is directly used as
the energy storage medium. The second generation system has
only one tank, as shown in Fig. 8(b) [166]. A stratification of fluid,
which maintains hot fluid on top of cold fluid, is important to such
a single tank thermal storage system [167–170].
The third generation system uses two different mediums, a HTF
and a primary thermal storage material [171], either solid or liquid,
with only a single storage tank. Depend on the contact and heat
transfer between the HTF and the primary energy storage material,
the storage system may have two types. The first type as shown in
Fig. 8(c), includes loosely packed solid materials (such as rocks,
pebbles of metals, capsules of phase change materials) as a porous
bed, through which the HTF flows and transports energy to or
from the solid materials; while the second type of two-medium
heat storage system, as shown in Fig. 8(d), is the embedded
structure system.
3.3.1. Thermocline system
Currently, the 2-tank storage system is the most commercially
mature technology and has been widely used in industry, and the
thermocline TES system attracts a lot of attention in recent years.
In a thermocline system, a thermal gradient is created and is
ideally stabilized and preserved by buoyancy effects. As a result a
stratification of fluid can be maintained in the storage system so
that the hot fluid remains at the top while the cold fluid remains at
the bottom [172]. An ideal thermocline model is shown in Fig. 9(a),
which has an imaginary vertically movable perfect thermal insu-
lation baffle that prevent the mixing of hot and cold fluids. A
porous media packed bed thermocline thermal storage system can
be applied. The presence of the filler material aids in maintaining
the gradient and reduces natural convection within the HTF [173].
3.3.2. Sensible heat storage system (SHSS)
Sensible heat storage system (SHSS) achieves thermal storage by
raising the temperature of a sensible heat material (such as con-
crete, sand, rock, brick, soil, graphite, silicon carbide, taconite, cast
iron, and even waste metal chips) [174]. All of the current CSP plants
installed TES systems in commercial scales using sensible heat. Two
types of one-tank SHSS undergoing extensive researches and stu-
dies are embedded structure system and packed bed system [175].
Embedded structure system is supposed to improve the heat
transfer between storage material and HTF. For high temperature
SHSS, concrete systems with an integrated tubular heat exchanger
have been investigated by Laing et al. [176]. The HTF passes
through embedded pipes in the storage concrete to transfer heat
to concrete. Single unit and modular charging/discharging con-
crete storage concepts are also investigated [177,178]. Instead of
using high heat conductive materials, the use of embedded heat
pipes (HPs) or thermosyphons between a phase change material
1120 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131

Fig. 9. Schematics of (a) An ideal sensible heat storage thermocline model system (© 2011 Li, Van Lew, Karaki, Chan, Stephens, O'Brien. Originally published in [166] under CC BY-NC-
SA 3.0 license. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/20979), (b) A packed bed sensible heat storage thermocline system [184], (c) A three-part TES system combining sensible and
latent storage charging process (adapted from Fig. 1 in [196]) and (d) A cascade latent heat storage system with 5 different PCMs (adapted from [197]).

(PCM) and the HTF are also explored to enhance the heat trans-
portortation [179–182]. However, concrete can become fragile and
easy to crack after a number of high temperature cycles of heat
charging/discharging if it contains moisture. In order to overcome
this disadvantage, Han et al. [183] proposed to use sand with high
thermal conductive fluid (XCELTHERM 600 thermal oil) instead of
concrete. This method avoids issues of heat transfer degradation
associated with the mismatch of thermal expansion of pipes and
concrete, and this new thermal storage material can provide better
heat transfer between HTF and thermal storage material.
In a packed bed system, the bed consists of storage materials
(rocks, ores, pebbles), a container and HTF, as shown in Fig. 9(b)
[184]. This system can maintain the thermocline when low thermal
conductive materials such as rocks are used. Most packed bed
systems are single tank systems. Using a solid storage medium and
the need of only one tank significantly reduces the cost of this
system [165]. The cost of a packed bed TES is only 2/3 of a two-tank
system. One commercial example of the packed bed TES system is
the Solar One pilot plant which uses Solar Salt as the HTF and
quartzite and silica sand as the low cost filler material [185].
Most of the experiments performed in a packed bed focused on
developing the heat transfer correlations for different configurations
and shapes of the particles that can be used for the thermal analysis of
the system. A high temperature thermal storage system using a
packed bed of rocks for air-based central receiver CSP plants was
modeled and validated by Hanchen et al. [186]. According to their
study, the pumping power for a particle size of more than 10 mm was
less than 1% of the power produced. Warekar et al. [187] described the
results of simulations and experimental measurements of the heat
exchanger, and discussed the scale-up options.
3.3.3. Latent heat storage system (LHSS)
Latent heat storage is a nearly isothermal process that can
provide significantly larger storage capacity compared to sensible
heat storage of the same temperature range. Isothermal storage is
an important characteristic because solar field inlet and exit
temperatures are limited due to constraints of the HTF, solar field
equipment and Rankine cycle [188].
A major technology barrier limiting the use of PCM, however, is
the higher thermal resistance due to low thermal conductivity
[189]. As a result, a large heat transfer surface area between HTF
and PCM is needed, and two approaches to increase the surface
area are commonly used [190]. One apporach is the encapsulation
of small amounts of PCM in spherical or cylindrical capsules [191],
which can be arranged to form a packed bed. HTF flows through
the packed bed for energy delivery and extraction. PCM stored in
capsules with a diameter of 10 mm has a surface area of more than
300 m2/m3[192]. The other approach is to embed the PCM in a
matrix made of another solid material with high heat conductivity,
and HTF pipes run through the PCM matrix [193,194]. The use of a
matrix material (graphite or metal mesh) helps in enhancing heat
conduction in the PCM.
 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131 1121

Fig. 10. Sizing strategies flow charts for (a) Sensible thermocline TES system [165] and (b) Latent thermocline TES system [204].

3.3.4. Combined system and cascade latent heat storage system
(CLHSS)
In a traditional superheated steam Rankine cycle power block, it
is desirable to minimize the temperature difference between the
storage medium and HTF in order to reduce energy losses [195]. A
three-part storage system demonstrated in Fig. 9(c) is proposed by
Laing et al. [196], where a PCM is deployed for two-phase eva-
poration in a CSP plant, while concrete storage is used for storing
sensible heat, that is for preheating of water and superheating of
steam. Laboratory test results of a PCM test module with 140 kg
NaNO3, applying the sandwich concept for enhancement of heat
transfer, provided the expected capacity and power density.
1122 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131
Cascade latent heat storage systems (CLHSS) are one possible
TES alternative, which is marked by a minimum of necessary
storage material [165] as shown in Fig. 9(d) [197]. The use of a
cascade of multiple PCMs shall ensure the optimal utilization of
the storage material. A theoretical analysis based on a simplified
optimization model of a CLHSS is presented by Aceves et al. [198].
For single charging and discharging processes, it is shown that a
CLHSS yields exergetic advantages if operated in counterflow with
respect to charging/discharging and if sufficient heat transfer can
be realized. Energy and exergy analysis of a thermal energy storage
system employing multiple PCMs was developed by Domanski and
Fellah [199]. It is shown that the exergy efficiency can be sig-
nificantly improved using multiple PCMs compared with a single
PCM in a system.
3.3.5. Sizing strategies and cost
The sizing of the storage tanks is necessary in order for the TES
system to be integrated with the power generation block. This will
highly depend upon the storage capacity required for the TES
system, the operation time, operating temperature ranges and the
thermal performance itself. Van Lew et al. [200,201] proposed to
use the generalized charts of energy storage effectiveness to
determine the size of sensible heat thermocline storage tank, and
the sizing strategies are summarized in Fig. 10(a) [165]. The
dimensionless 1D heat transfer governing equations were used
and all scenarios of energy charge and discharge processes were
also studied. It has been found that what can be provided through
the analysis is a series of well-configured general charts bearing
curves of energy storage effectiveness against four dimensionless
parameters grouped up from the storage tank dimensions, prop-
erties of the fluid and filler material, and operational conditions.
The generalized charts are applicable to general sensible heat
thermocline TES systems.
An accurate and efficient model of latent heat thermocline
system with encapsulated PCM has been proposed by Tumilowicz
et al. [202], named as an enthalpy-based 1D transient model. The
model was developed based on the work of Van Lew et al. [173] to
include encapsulated PCM fillers. The thermal resistance inside the
encapsulated PCM is taken into account by incorporating the
effective heat transfer coefficient [203]. This model accurately
describes the heat transfer and energy storage/extraction between
HTF and the packed-bed solid filler material and allows tracking of
interfaces throughout the thermocline processes. Xu et al.
[204,205] proposed a trial tank sizing strategy based on this
enthalpy-based 1D transient model, and a trial storage tank
volume is first determined based on the cutoff temperature, below
which the HTF will be returned to the solar field to be reheated;
and this trial storage tank volume will be used as a basis to find a
real storage tank volume that can satisfy the requirement of the
cutoff temperature. The flow chart of this volume sizing strategy is
shown in Fig. 10(b). Yang and Garimella [206] and Bayón and Rojas
[207] presented other sizing strategies, in which discharge effi-
ciency was used to determine the storage tank size instead of
cutoff temperature.
Cost-effectiveness is one important criterion for selecting a
thermal storage system. Pacheco et al. [208] presented a cost
analysis of a packed bed thermocline system. Xu et al. [204] pre-
sented a rudimentary cost analysis to compare the cost of SHSS
and LHSS, and concluded LHSS has 38–43% reduction of capacity
cost than SHSS.
3.4. Heat receiver
This section reviews overall designs of central heat receiver
systems, and places more focus on the photothermal absorber
materials that lie at the core of these systems. The receiver designs
can mainly be categorized into three types: (1) gas receivers,
(2) liquid receivers, and (3) solid particle receivers. For each type
of system design, a description of the working principle, current
state-of-the-art development, and research needs are provided.
The second part of this section provides a detailed review on the
various types of photothermal absorber materials available to date.
3.4.1. Receiver system configuration
There are many factors in determining the optimal design of a
central receiver. Among them, the thermal efficiency, ηth, repre-
sents the most important characteristic of a given system. This
efficiency value, if maximized, plays a critical role in the over
thermal-to-electric conversion efficiency of the entire CSP system.
The thermal efficiency, ηth, is the ratio of the difference between
the total solar power absorbed by the photothermal absorber and
the heat loses to the total incoming solar radiation, and can be
expressed in this form [209]:
αQ in  Q loss εσF view T 4R þhðT R  T amb Þ
ηth ¼ ¼ α ð1Þ
Q in ηf ield  EDNI  C
where α is the solar absorptance of the photothermal absorber,
ε is the thermal emittance of the photothermal absorber, σ is the
Stefan-Boltzmann constant (5.67  10  8 W/m2 K4), Fview is the
radiative view factor from the absorber surface to the surround-
ings, TR is the absorber surface temperature (K), h is the convective
heat transfer coefficient, Tamb is the ambient temperature (K), ηfield
is the heliostat field efficiency (including cosine losses, reflectance
losses, and spillage), EDNI is the direct normal irradiance (W/m2),
and C is the concentration ratio. Using the baseline values of an
absorptance of 0.95, an ambient temperature of 20 °C, an annual
heliostat field efficiency of 0.6 [210], an average direct normal
irradiance of 800 W/m2 [185], a convective heat transfer coeffi-
cient of 10 W/m2 K [185], and a baseline radiative view factor of 1,
the dependence of the receiver thermal efficiency on absorber
surface temperature at a range of emittance values is calculated
and presented in Fig. 11. From the predictions, it can be seen that
at high temperatures reducing the radiative heat losses is crucial
in keeping efficient operation of a heat receiver system.
3.4.1.1. Gas receiver. Volumetric air receivers, small particle air
receivers and tubular gas receivers are the three major types of gas
receivers. They are discussed in details separately as follows:
(1) Volumetric air receivers: The basic working principles of volu-
metric air/gas receiver systems are simple; a porous solid
medium (e.g., porous ceramics) is used to absorb the con-
centrated sunlight, convert the optical energy to thermal, and
then transfer the heat to the gas/air passing through it. The
heated air/gas is then used to heat a separate working fluid
[211], charge a storage medium [136], or pass directly to a gas
turbine. There are two basic types of volumetric air/gas
receiver: (1) open-loop atmospheric receiver system for a
Rankine cycle and (2) closed-loop pressurized receiver system
for a Brayton cycle. Based on porous ceramic absorber, this
type of system has been shown to reach 65% thermal
efficiency at an outlet temperature of 550 °C, and a  54%
efficiency at an outlet temperature of 730 °C [212]. In a two-
slab selective receiver design, 90% efficiency was achieved at
gas outlet temperature close to 730 °C [213,214]. This
approach uses two panels of different absorbers to allow
absorption of photons in a wider spectral range and reduction
of heat losses by blocking and absorbing thermal radiations
emitted as the absorber reaches its operating temperatures.
The main issue associated with volumetric air/gas receiver
designs is that the unstable flow and non-uniform heating in
 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131
Fig. 11. Receiver thermal efficiency versus absorber surface temperature at a range
of emittance values.
the receiver can lead to overheating and local failures in the
receiver material [215,216]. Current efforts in the research and
development of gas receiver systems are placed in reducing
the flow instability by introducing uniform heating and low-
ering the porosity of absorber materials [217].
(2) Small particle air receivers: Originally proposed in the 1970s
[218,219], this type of receiver design utilizes sub-micron
particles suspended in air as the medium to absorb sunlight,
convert it to thermal energy, and transfer the heat to the air
surrounding them. Advantages of this type of system include
large total particle surface area to increase solar absorption
and low risk of thermal cyclic damage to the absorber
material. Theoretical calculations have shown that a 700 °C
air temperature and 90% efficiency can be reached when the
operating parameters are optimized [220–222]. Current
research in this area focuses on a solid–gas suspension system
that allows for a desired solid concentration and temperature
throughout the receiver domain.
(3) Tubular gas receivers: With a potential of reaching a theoretical
efficiency of 81%, tubular gas receivers work similar to the
radiators used in most automobiles currently on the road.
When integrated into a gas turbine system, the air/gas is
pressurized by a compressor and distributed into parallel
tubes where it receives the heat converted and transferred
from the solar absorber material coated on the tubes. The
heated air/gas then expands and is used to drive the turbine.
This type of systems has been shown to be capable of reaching
43% efficiency, in practical, at an inlet and outlet temperatures
of 600 °C and 800 °C, respectively. Current research and
development in this type of systems has been focused in the
area of reducing convective and radiative losses at higher
temperatures, material and structural developments to reduce
failures resulted from thermal cycles, as well as the use of
carbon dioxide as the gas as it has been shown that CO2
Brayton cycles can reach thermodynamic efficiencies of
greater than 50% in CSP applications [223–229].
3.4.1.2. Liquid receivers. Two major types of liquid receivers are
tubular liquid receivers and falling-film receivers, which are dis-
cussed as follows:
(1) Tubular liquid receivers: Conceived in the 1970s and first
implemented in the 90s, the idea of using liquid state heat
transfer media running through small-diameter pipes
1123
irradiated by sunlight to transport thermal energy from the
photothermal absorber (coated on the pipes) to the heat
storage or to the power block lies at the heart of the tubular
liquid receiver designs [230]. This type of systems has been
shown to be capable of reaching thermal efficiencies of close
to 90% [231,232] when using high temperature working fluids
such as LiCl/KCl. Sharing similar design principles with the gas
tubular type systems, the working fluids in the liquid tubular
systems, however, typically have much higher thermal con-
ductivities and heat transfer coefficients. As a result, higher
incident flux levels (above 1.5 MW/m2) and higher thermal
efficiencies can be reached due to the reduced temperature
gradient in the tubes and the associated thermal stresses. As
the operating temperatures go beyond 600 °C, issues like
decomposition, reactivity (corrosion) and leakage are encoun-
tered [233–235]. Current emphasis in the research and devel-
opment of this type of systems are mainly in the areas of heat
transfer fluid development (please refer to the HTF section),
high temperature corrosion and cyclic fatigue mitigation
strategies [236,237].
(2) Falling-film receivers: The working principle of this type of heat
receiver relies on the direct or indirect exposure of a working
fluid to the photothermal energy as it flows down an inclined
wall as a liquid “film”. This approach drastically reduces the
requirements associated with pumping and plumping of the
HTF, because the fluid is directed to the top of the inclined
surface and is pulled down the incline only by gravity. For the
direct heating approach (also referred as Direct Absorption
Receiver, DAR), photothermal absorber particles are sus-
pended in the fluid to collect sunlight and emit heat into the
working fluid in which they are suspended [238]. The location
of the liquid film can be on the interior (internal DAR) or
exterior (external DAR) wall of the receiver and the heating of
the fluid can be done directly or indirectly. In the indirect
heating implementation, the working fluid flows down the
inclined photothermal absorber substrate surface and receives
the heat as it travels down the surface [239]. For external DAR
using molten carbonate salt, it has been shown to reach about
80–90% thermal efficiencies with heat transfer coefficients
about 3000 W/m2 K. In internal DAR cases, estimates of
thermal efficiencies close to 95% have been predicted when
rotating mechanisms are incorporated into the receiver to
promote incidence and thermal uniformity [240]. A main
concern with this type of receiver designs is that the falling
film in an external DAR system can become unstable and
cause un-even thermal stresses. Recent efforts in the research
and development of falling-film receivers have focused mainly
on internal DAR systems and have shown potentials of this
implementation to reach high efficiencies at low start-up and
maintenance costs [241–244].
3.4.1.3. Solid particle receivers. Proposed in the 80s as an approach
to increase operating temperature to above 1000 °C, this type of
receivers uses the direct exposure to concentrated sunlight to heat
up ceramic particles as they fall through the internal space of a
receiver chamber [245]. The heat held by these particles is then
stored or transferred to another working fluid for the power cycle.
Due to the “free-floating” nature of absorber particles that greatly
reduces high stresses in components associated with storage and
transport of working fluids in fluid-based receivers, this type of
system is typically designed to have higher capacities (10 to
100 MW) [246]. Though most studies have been theoretical
[247,248], and have shown that this type of systems can reach a
thermal efficiency of up to 90%, the only experimental results
currently available show a 50% efficiency and an increase of par-
ticle temperature of 250 °C from the inlet to the outlet without
1124 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131
optimization. Current development in this type of receiver designs
mainly focuses in the areas of increasing thermal efficiency by
increasing solar concentration ratio and decreasing heat losses
[249], optimization of particles with respect to packing density,
heat capacity, resistance to sintering and thermal shock as well as
corrosion [245]. The design aspect of the particle transport system
and effective particle-to-working-fluid heat transfer are under
development now in light of increasing overall operation and
thermal efficiency [250,251].
3.4.2. High-temperature photothermal absorber materials
The overall thermal-to-electric efficiency of CSP systems is
bound by Carnot efficiency, and therefore, increasing the tem-
perature of the power cycles sees benefit in the overall conversion
efficiency. Based on Eq. (1), the radiative losses of the absorber
play a key role in determining the thermal efficiency of the pho-
tothermal absorber due to its 4th power dependence on absorber
surface temperatures (4 600 °C). This dependence is clearly
demonstrated in Fig. 11. It is, therefore, imperative that a photo-
thermal absorber material with higher absorptance and low
emittance be used in order to increase the thermal-to-electrical
efficiency of CSP systems.
An ideal selective absorber material for the CSP system not only
needs to have high absorption in the spectral range with high
concentrations of solar power and reflecting wavelengths with
high amounts of blackbody radiation, but it also needs to be low
cost and exhibit long-term chemical, physical, and thermal stabi-
lity at their operating temperature. Here we review five groups of
solar selective materials that are suitable for use as a mid- to high-
temperature photothermal absorption application. This section
provides a review on the working principles, current capabilities,
as well as future research and development directions on these
material groups.
Five different material designs including intrinsic selective
materials, semiconductor-metal tandems, multilayer absorbers,
metal-dielectric composites, photonic crystals and nanostructured
absorbers are separately discussed as follows:
(1) Intrinsic selective materials: Intrinsic selective materials
include some transition metals and semiconductors where the
optical absorption is wavelength dependent, whereas in
metals the absorption increases when the incident photon
exceeds their plasmon frequency, in semiconductors their
band gap determines the absorption. Though this type of
materials is simple and easy to construct, they generally need
structural modification to be useful as there are no intrinsic
materials that possess the ideal selectivity behavior for pho-
tothermal applications [252]. Among intrinsic materials with
spectral selective absorption, tungsten (W) and copper sulfide
(Cu2S) have selectivity beyond 2–5 μm wavelength and, with
an anti-reflection coating, zirconium diboride (ZrB2), show
reasonable spectrally averaged absorptance and emittance in
the mid-temperature regime [252,253]. Intrinsic materials are
in general used as a primary absorber in more complex
absorber designs such as cermets.
(2) Semiconductor-metal tandems: Owing to the electronic band-
gaps of semiconductor materials, their absorption of incident
photons is intrinsically wavelength selective. When backed
with a metal, a photothermal absorber material can be con-
structed such that the photons with energy higher than the
semiconductor bandgap are absorbed by it, while the lower
energy photons pass through the semiconductor but are
reflected back into space by the backing metal layer. When
composed of proper materials, this type of absorber material
system can obtain high spectrally averaged absorptance and
low emittance [252]. Suitable semiconductors include silicon,
germanium, and lead sulfide, and an anti-reflection coating is
typically used to address impedance mismatch on the air-
semiconductor interface. Several semiconductor-metal tan-
dems have been shown to be able to reach absorptance values
between 0.79 and 0.89, and emittance values as low as 0.016,
and 0.073 at 400 and 1000 K respectively by using silicon,
germanium as the semiconductors and silver or aluminum as
the backing metal [254–256].
(3) Multilayer absorbers: Stacks of alternating metal-dielectric thin
layers can display increased absorptance in a range of wave-
lengths associated with the properties and dimensions of the
constituent materials [252]. Resulted from the partial absorp-
tion in the metal layers and the multiple reflections at each
metal-dielectric interfaces across the stack, this increased
absorption can be used as the basic principle of a photother-
mal absorber material. Several examples have been used to
show the potential of this type of approach. Materials includ-
ing tungsten, titanium, aluminum are good candidates for
metals, while dielectrics and high-band gap semiconductors
such as silicon dioxide (SiO2), titanium dioxide (TiO2), magne-
sium fluoride (MgF2), aluminum oxide (Al2O3), and silicon
nitride (Si3N4) are good candidates to reach spectrally aver-
aged absorptance values up to 0.97, and spectrally averaged
emittance values of as low as 0.06 at temperatures as high as
450 °C [257–264]. These materials are in general not scalable
as they are in general expansive to construct, complex, and
prone to damage/failure under cyclic thermal loads.
(4) Metal-dielectric composites: Metal-dielectric composites, or
cermets, are typically made of metal particles dispersed in
dielectric phases. An anti-reflection coating and a metal
reflector backing are also typically incorporated into the
device design with the cermet being the primary absorber.
While a fair number of high-melting-temperature metals
(such as copper, gold, nickel, molybdenum, chromium, cobalt
and tungsten) are good candidates for the metal constituent,
oxides such as silica, alumina and magnesia have shown
potential to be used for forming usable cermets [265].
Whereas manipulation of the concentration, geometry,
dimensions, and even orientation of the metal particle con-
stituent in cermets has shown that noble metals can display
desirable photothermal properties [266], the most widely
used metal-dielectric mixture have been developed based on
Cr–Cr2O3 and Ni–Al2O3 due mainly to their relatively low
production and material cost at as respectable performance
level of a spectrally averaged absorptance of 0.94 and a
spectrally averaged emittance of 0.07 [267–272].
In addition to the tuning of performance of cermets from the
changes in the metal constituent homogeneous concentration,
geometry, and dimension, introducing heterogeneity into the
material domain by introducing a gradient in the concentra-
tion of these properties can add another level of performance.
This was first demonstrated by either stacking two layers of
cermets with different metal concentrations, or introducing a
gradient in the concentration across a single layer cermet
[273,274]. In doing so, the impedance mismatch between the
anti-reflective coating and the cermet is reduced and the
overall absorptance is increased. Through co-evaporation,
platinum and alumina have been used to form a cermet layer
with no metal at the AR coating-ermet interface, and com-
pletely metal at the cermet-back reflector interface, and have
shown a measured absorptance and emittance values of 0.98
and 0.21 at 200 °C [275]. A double cermet design has also been
proposed where an optimized Mo:Al2O3 composition combi-
nation of 0.34 and 0.53 has been shown to reach an absorp-
tance of 0.955 and a normal emittance of 0.08 at 350 °C [276].
More recently, a four-layer cermet structure of tungsten and
 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131 1125

silica has been studied and optimized to show an absorptance

of 0.979, and emittance of 0.042 at 400 K with a thermal
efficiency of 0.843; and its potential in high-temperature
applications where an absorptance of 0.945 and an emittance
of 0.172 at a thermal efficiency of 0.756 can be obtained at
1000 K [277].
(5) Photonic crystals and nanostructured absorbers: In the simplest
view, a photonic crystal is a periodic array of two or more
materials with different dielectric constants. This allows a
photonic bandgap to be formed where incident photons onto
this periodic array is completely reflected for all angles and
polarizations. The implication of using this type of material
system in photothermal absorber designs is that an “ideal”
solar selective material can be designed and obtained. An
example of this type of surface is shown in Fig. 12 where a
large array of tapered silicon nanowires is etched into a silicon
surface to form a silicon nano-tip forest. This simple photonic
crystal is easy to fabricate and scalable, and its spectral
absorption selectivity shows strong dependence on the geo-
metry and defect concentration [278].

In addition to 1-D grating type photonic crystals, 2D and 3D

photonic crystals open the door to a new class of photothermal
absorber materials with not only very high absorptance, but also
extremely low radiative thermal losses. An array of holes in metal
surfaces as a 2D photonic crystal has been shown to represent a
feasible design. The emittance of such designs can be tuned to
reach above 0.8 and 0.2 below and above the cutoff wavelength of
1.7 mm respectively, when an orthogonal array of rectangular
cavities is made into a tungsten substrate [279–282]. When
cylindrical holes arranged in either square or hexagonal arrays are
made into tungsten surfaces, the emittance of the photonic crystal
design can be tuned by optimizing the hole dimension, spacing,
and depth to reach close to unity in the range of 750 nm and
1.3 mm with a sharp drop off to around 0.1 above the cutoff
wavelength of 1.7 mm [283,284]. More recently, square arrays of
pyramids and cones made on W and Mo have been demonstrated
to show extremely high potential in maximizing absorption and
minimizing radiative losses. By tuning the feature geometries and Fig. 12. SEM and optical images of a silicon nanocone-based 2D photonic crystal
dimension, absorptance of near unity was achieved using tungsten and its optical response under polychromatic exposure. (a) Reflectivity spectrum of
straight silicon nanowires and that of silicon nanocones with the same length and
nano-pyramids [285,286], while in the Mo micro-cones a spec-
base diameter as the straight wires. (b) Reflectivity spectra of silicon nanocone
trally averaged absorptance of 0.919 and emittance of 0.149 were samples with similar geometry and dimensions but with different doping levels of
calculated at 1000 °C [287]. phosphorous.
Selective solar absorbers that are stable at high temperatures
represent a critical part of reaching high thermal efficiencies in up in the sky and falling down continuously due to the high
CSP applications. The five groups of material designs reviewed temperature heat beams focused towards the solar tower. The
here represent possible approach to harness and converting pho- exact number of birds being killed at Ivanpah is still debated.
ton energy in the sunlight into the thermal energy needed in the Bright Source Energy, one partner invested on this CSP plant,
power cycle. Currently cermets has the most feasibility in that its estimated that 321 birds found dead in the first six months
flexibility in design and performance as well as low production operation, while some observers have argued the annual bird
cost play an important part of the overall system implementation death number can be as high as 28,000 [288]. However, this
feasibility. However, photonic crystals have recently shown tre- number is still much lower compared to the hundreds of millions
mendous potential in going beyond commonly agreed upon the-
to billions bird death caused by collision with windows, vehicles
oretical efficiency limits [265], because of their unique ability to
and power lines [289]. Besides the effect to wildlife, the glare
have optimized photon density of states that can result in com-
coming from the solar tower due to the concentrating solar beams
plete suppression of thermal emission in all directions to allow
will also cause visual effects on humans and it could interfere with
thermal exchange with only the sun. This is particularly important
aircraft operations, if reflected light beams become misdirected
because high thermal-to-electric conversion efficiencies are
into aircraft pathways.
achieved at high operating temperature where radiative heat
CSP systems employ several hazardous materials such as
losses have strong effects.
organics, thermal oils, molten-salts, hydraulic fluids, coolants and
3.5. Environmental impacts and commercial viability lubricants, which may pose spill risks. Proper planning and good
maintenance practices must be followed in order to minimize the
Environmentalists have recently criticized the world's largest environmental impacts from these hazardous materials. Especially
CSP plant-the Ivanpah solar power facility in the U.S. – for influ- the organic Biphenyl/Diphenyl oxide pair used in CSP systems is
encing wildlife such as birds. It has been noted that birds are burnt highly toxic, which has potential to catch fire and also can
1126 X. Xu et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 53 (2016) 1106–1131
contaminate soils leading to environmental problems [290]. Fur-
thermore, use of Solar Salt as HTF and/or storage medium leads to
emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O). This is not negligible since N2O is
300 times stronger than CO2 as a greenhouse gas [290]. However,
the amount of emission is roughly 500–1000 times smaller than
the CO2 emissions in a similar coal power plant.
The other important issue with the CSP systems is the com-
mercial viability. In 2009 the capital cost of a CSP plant is typically
about 12–18 C\  t\\vskip\  tˈ per kW h [7]. The cost is expected to
reduce by at least half in the near future due to technology
improvement in heliostat mirrors [291]. The European Academics
Science Advisory Council estimated the LCOE-which includes the
initial capital, discount rate, as well as the costs of continuous
operation, fuel and maintenance-of different technologies in 2010
[290]. LCOE of 100 MW CSP without heat storage in Phoenix,
Arizona (DNI¼ 2500 kW h/m2/year) were reported to be 23
C\  t\\vskip\  tˈ/kW h. Lower LCOE was expected in MENA area
because the DNI is about 5% higher. As comparisons the LCOE of
150 MW PV (Arizona), 100 MW onshore wind and 400 MW off-
shore wind were reported to be 28, 11 and 20
C\  t\\vskip\  tˈ/kW h, respectively. However, studies also
showed that the cost was expected to reduce by around 60% in
future due to mass production and technology innovations in
HTFs, high-temperature storage and thermodynamic cycles [292].
The cost of CSP is predicted to achieve 50% reduction between
2021 and 2031, which suggests cost competitiveness of CSP with
fossil-fired generation in 10–20 years [15]. The SunShot Initiative
of the U.S. DOE aims to accelerate research, development and large
scale deployment of solar technologies in the US in order to make
sure the solar power is commercially viable and economical for
the energy needs of the country. The ultimate goal of the SunShot
Initiative program is to reduce the cost of CSP electricity by 75% at
the end of this decade, aiming to have baseload energy rates to be
6 C\  t\\vskip\  tˈ/kW h without subsidies [293]. This cost
reduction will pave the way for large scale adoption of solar
electricity across the United States.
4. Conclusions
The CSP systems and their components are being developed
with a focus on performance, reliability and cost as evident from
thousands of research publications through sustained, long-term
investments by various agencies like US DOE's SunShot program
along with industry partners. Even though four different CSP
technologies (PTC, LFR, SPT and PDS) are being explored, the solar
power tower based systems are gaining major attention as evident
from the world's largest utility scale Ivanpah CSP systems
(392 MW) commissioned in the USA in 2014. The projection is
clear in identifying the sites with relatively high direct normal
irradiance for large scale CSP systems and accordingly the Middle
East, North Africa, Australia, Southwestern of the United States,
Spain, Southwestern of China and China/Mongolia border and
India have good potential. The challenging components identified
are water requirement, heat transfer fluid, thermal energy storage
subsystems for developing highly reliable CSP systems with
operating temperatures above 800 °C. In addition, there are also
issues related to sustaining the CSP performance due to soiling
which is similar to the large scale PV systems and technologies are
being developed to keep the mirrors clean with minimum use of
water in the desert locations. The water scarcity problem in arid
region can possibly be solved by dry cooling or CSP-desalination
cogeneration technologies. Molten-salt mixtures are the most
promising high temperature HTF candidates so far due to their
high thermal stability temperatures and properties similar to
steam at high temperatures. TES is already in the commercial
application stage and LHSS is expected to dominate in future.
Environmental impacts of the CSP systems are minor and the
commercial viability is promising. By developing and deploying
more efficient CSP systems, the sun's free and clean energy can be
harnessed to power homes, businesses, and communities across
the country with reduction in harmful carbon pollution for keep-
ing the air and water cleaner for the future generation.
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