2008 Industry Report
Produced by the Prometheus Institute for Sustainable Development and Greentech Media
Sorin Grama
Elizabeth Wayman
Travis Bradford
Concentrating Solar Power
-Technology, Cost, and Markets
A guide to the impact CSP technologies will have on the solar
and broader renewable energy markets through 2020
About
Concentrating Solar Power 2008
Our goal is to accelerate the deployment of socially-benefi cial sustainable technologies, including those of energy, water, and food, by educating industry participants, advocates, and policymakers about their advantages. We achieve our mission by collecting and disseminating reliable data, quantitative analysis, and practical information about these industries.
Today, the Institute strives to be the world’s leading source of publicly available primary data on the photovoltaic (PV) supply chain and end-markets through a series of data collection and outreach projects and the publication of the industry’s oldest newslet-ter, PVNews™.
Greentech Media is an integrated online me-dia company designed to deliver the highest-quality content in the industry, whether it is research, news or critical networking events. We are founded by a team of profession-als who have extensive experience in online media and technology who have developed a publishing model ideally suited for this na-scent and critical market.
Our editors have made Greentech Media the go-to source for independent and insightful news in the greentech space. Our research team is adept at creating technology- and trend-focused research based on a combina-tion of quantitative and qualitative data. Our extensive content and industry expertise form the foundation for focused, industry-leading events on the latest technology topics in the greentech market. Greentech Media is head-quartered in Cambridge, Mass., with opera-tions in New York City and San Francisco.
1280 Massachusetts Ave, Suite 203 Cambridge, MA 02138 www.prometheus.org Phone: +1-617-868-0337 1132 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, MA 02138 www.greentechmedia.com Phone: +1-617-312-3866
1. Concentrating Solar Rising
1
2. CSP Technology Overview
9
2.1 CSP System Components 9 2.2 Overview of CSP Systems 13 2.3 Trough and LFR 16 2.4 Tower 21 2.5 Dish-Engine 25 2.6 Dish CPV 27 2.7 Lens CPV 29 2.8 Low Concentration PV 31 2.9 Non-Tracking CPV 322.10 Representative Installations - Currently In Operation 33 2.11 Representative Installations – Under Construction and In Planning 35
3. Markets for CSP
39
3.1 Large, Medium and Small Installations 40
3.2 Residential, Commercial and Utility Markets 41
3.3 Distributed vs. Central Generation Markets 44
3.4 Geographical Markets 45
4. CSP Industry Overview
51
4.1 Current and Planned Capacity 52
4.2 CSP Industry Value Chain 53
4.3 Technology Distribution of the CSP Industry 56
4.4 Geographical Distribution of the CSP Industry 57
4.5 Selected CSP Industry Profi les 58
5. Financial Analysis & Projections 63
5.1 Capital Equipment Cost 63
5.2 Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) 65
5.3 The Adoption of CSP Technology 68
5.4 Other benefi ts and Risks 78
5.5 Future Outlook 80
Appendices 81
Concentrator Technologies 81
Tracking Systems 87
Energy Storage Technologies 89
Power Conversion Technologies 93
Complete list of Announced CSP Installations 97
Trough/LFR Industry Roster 101
Tower Industry Roster 109
Dish-Engine Industry Roster 113
Dish CPV Industry Roster 117
Lens CPV Industry Roster 121
LCPV Industry Roster 129
Non-Tracking CPV Industry Roster 133
LCOE Value Analysis 137
ii
PV Technology, Performance, and Cost - 2007 Update
FIGURES
Figure 1-1. Markets and applications for solar power 1 Figure 1-2. LCOE trend over time at two different locations in United States 4 Figure 1-3. Number of CSP companies targeting each market segment 5 Figure 1-4. Solar technology penetration based on location and market segments 6 Figure 2-1. Concentrating Solar Power System Components. 9
Figure 2-2. Sample Concentrator Technologies. 10
Figure 2-3. Daily Output Effect of tracking on the PV and CPV output 10 Figure 2-4. Effect of Tracking and Concentration on the Solar Resource Available to PV and CSP
Technologies. 11
Figure 2-5. Production Profi le of a CST Installation with 6 hours of Thermal Energy Storage. 12
Figure 2-6. Land Use of CSP Technologies 15
Figure 2-7. Oil-Indirect Steam Generation Trough Plant Schematic. 18 Figure 2-8. Direct Steam Generation LFR Plant Schematic. 19 Figure 2-9. Organic Rankine Cycle Trough Installation Schematic. 19
Figure 2-10. Central Tower Confi guration. 21
Figure 2-11. Rendering of Decentralized Towers. 22
Figure 2-12. Direct Steam Generation Tower Schematic. 23
Figure 2-13. Indirect Steam Generation Plant Schematic. 23 Figure 2-14. Volumetric Solar Receiver for Compressed Air Gas Turbine Towers. 24
Figure 2-15. Diagram of Dish-Stirling System. 26
Figure 2-16. Dish-Brayton System. 26
Figure 2-17. Large Dish CPV Systems. 28
Figure 2-18. Medium Dish CPV System. 28
Figure 2-19. Small Dish CPV Systems. 28
Figure 2-20. Lens CPV Tracking Panels. 30
Figure 2-21. Lens CPV Individually Tracking Facets. 30
Figure 2-22. Low Concentration Photovoltaic Systems. 31
Figure 2-23. Non-Tracking CPV Panels. 32
Figure 3-1. Markets and applications for solar power 39
Figure 3-2. Technology mix in small, medium and large installations – 2008 40 Figure 3-3. Typical electricity load profi le in California and type of power plant required 42 Figure 3-4. The effect of load shifting and peak shaving on electricity demand (courtesy Chevron) 43
Figure 3-5. US Electricity Market. 44
Figure 3-6. Number of CSP companies targeting each market segment 45 Figure 3-7. Solar radiation varies with latitude and location 47 Figure 3-8. World insolation map (courtesy SunWize Solar) and most favorable areas for CSP 48 Figure 3-9. Geographical Demand for Renewable Energy in the US 48
Figure 3-10. Optimal technology selection by location 49
Figure 4-1. Announced Planned and Operational CSP Capacity by Technology 51 Figure 4-2. CSP Installations – Distribution by Technology in 2012 53
Figure 4-3. CSP Industry Value Chain 53
Figure 4-4. Companies Developing CSP Technologies. 56
Figure 4-5. CSP Company Activity by Technology. 57 Figure 4-6: Solar Thermal Installations Installed or in Construction by Region 58
Figure 4-7. CSP Companies by Location. 58
Figure 4-8. Trough and LFR Industry Value Chain and Signifi cant Participants. 60
Figure 4-9. Lens CPV Value Chain. 61
Figure 5-1: Comparison of capital equipment cost for scale of different solar technologies 63 Figure 5-2: Comparison of today’s LCOE at different locations 66 Figure 5-3: Comparison of 2015 LCOE at different locations 67 Figure 5-4: LCOE trend over time at two different locations in United States 68 Figure 5-5. Average Energy Demand and Average Energy Generation by PV Systems in July in California
1999-2003. 70
Figure 5-6. Average Wholesale Electricity Price and Average Energy Generation by PV Systems in
Northern California July 1999 - 2003. 70
Figure 5-7. Potential Value of Distributed Generation CSP Electricity under Flat-Rate and TOU or RTP
Pricing. 71
Figure 5-8. Wholesale Energy Prices and Production Profi les of PV and CPV systems. 72 Figure 5-9. Load Shifting and Peak Shaving Achieved by Large-Scale Solar Installation. 73 Figure 5-10. Wholesale Electricity Prices and CSP Production Profi les. 74 Figure 5-11. Load Shifting and Peak Shaving of a CST Installation with 3.5 hours of Storage. 75
Figure 5-12: Projected growth of solar installations 80
Figure 5-13: Solar technology penetration based on location and market segments 80 APPENDIX
Figure 1. Parabolic Trough Concentrator. 82
Figure 2. Linear Fresnel Refl ector. 83
Figure 3. Parabolic Dish Concentrators. 83
Figure 4. Heliostat Solar Field Concentrator. 84
Figure 5. Fresnel Lens Concentrator. 84
Figure 6. Non-Tracking Concentrators. 85
Figure 7. Low-Concentration Refl ective Concentrators. 85
Figure 8. 2-Axis Tracking System. 87
Figure 9. 2-Tank Indirect Thermal Energy Storage in Andasol-1. 89 Figure 10. Heat Transfer Fluid Manifold through a Solid Medium TES System. 90
Figure 11. 2-Tank Direct Thermal Energy Storage. 91
Figure 12. 1-Tank Thermocline Thermal Energy Storage. 91
Figure 13. 1-Tank Steam Accumulator Thermal Energy Storage. 92
Figure 14. Silicon Photovoltaic Power Converters. 93
Figure 15. Multi-Junction Photovoltaic Power Converters. 93
iv
PV Technology, Performance, and Cost - 2007 Update
TABLES
Table 1-2. Complete CSP Systems. 3
Table 2-1. Complete CSP Systems. 14
Table 2-2. Technical Characteristics of CSP Systems affecting LCOE 16
Table 2-3. Market Considerations of CSP Technologies. 17
Table 2-4. Trough & LFR Plant Technology Comparison. 20
Table 2-5. Trough and LFR Commercialization Summary. 21
Table 2-6. Tower Confi guration Comparison 22
Table 2-7. Tower Technology Comparison. 25
Table 2-8. Tower Commercialization Summary. 25
Table 2-9. Dish-Engine Technology Comparison. 25
Table 2-10. Dish-Engine Commercialization Summary. 27
Table 2-11. Dish CPV Technology Comparison. 27
Table 2-12. Dish CPV Commercialization Summary. 29
Table 2-13. Lens CPV Technology Comparison. 29
Table 2-14. Lens CPV Commercialization Summary. 30
Table 2-15. LCPV System Summary. 31
Table 2-16. LCPV Commercialization Status. 31
Table 2-17. Non-Tracking CPV Technology Comparison. 32
Table 2-18. Non-Tracking CPV Commercialization Summary 33
Table 2-19. Solar Thermal Installations Currently in Operation. 33
Table 2-20. CPV Installations Currently in Operation. 34
Table 2-21. Representative CSP Installations. 35
Table 2-22. Major CSP installations under construction as of January 2008. 36
Table 2-23. Representative CSP Installations in the Pipeline. 37
Table 4-1. Main Fully-Integrated CSP Companies and Capacity in Operation or Announced. 54
Table 4-2. Key CSP Component Suppliers. 55
Table 4-3. Emerging Fully Integrated CSP Companies. 55
Table 5-1. Cost assumptions for LCOE projections 64
Table 5-2. Solar radiation for select cities in United States. 66
Table 5-3. RTP Weighted Average Wholesale Prices of Electricity Produced by CST Installations with Varying Amounts of Storage. 75
Table 5-4. Characteristics of CST Installations and Competing Power Plants 76
Table 5-5. Progress Toward Economic Viability 78
Table 5-6. Hierarchy of Adoption of CSP Technologies 79
APPENDIX Table 1. Concentrator Technology Comparison. 81
Concentrating the sun’s rays in order to harness its great power for indus-trial purposes has a recorded history that dates back to Archimedes, but for thousands of years other sources of industrial energy have dominated the energy landscape. Just in the last hundred years, the development of indus-trial grids for the delivery of cheap electricity has relied on coal, oil, natural gas, hydro-electric dams, and nuclear reactors to power prime movers in a predominantly large, central station confi guration that shipped electricity to users over transmission and distribution lines. Combined, such generators make up over 95% of modern electricity generation capacity. But pressures continue to mount on the electricity industry – including rising cost of fos-sil fuels and systemic pressure on the ability to deliver of fuel and power to where it is needed, and increasing realization of the environmental and na-tional security repercussions of how energy is harnessed. These pressures are forcing modern industrial economies to look for additional sources of vital energy - and they are increasingly looking to the sun.
Today, a number of specifi c drivers are increasing the attractiveness of har-nessing solar resources for electricity generation, and many approaches are being developed and commercialized. Benefi ts include:
Solar electricity represents a highly popular form of new energy in
•
studies of public perception and expectation of future contribution to the energy mix.
SECTION
1
Concentrating
Solar Rising
Figure 1-1: Markets and applications for solar power
Category Small Medium Large
Installation Size < 10kW 10 to 100kW 100kW to 1 MW 1 to 10MW 10 to 100MW > 100 MW Technology Mix in Each Market 100% PV 99% PV, 1% CSP 20% PV, 80% CSP 2007 Share of Worldwide Solar Market
(Installed Capacity and % of Installed Capacity) 7GW (84%) 0.7 GW (9%) 0.5 GW (7%) Installation Type Distributed Generation
Central Generation Markets Served
Residential
Commercial
Utility
Base (50%). Intermediate (40%), Peak (10%)
PV Based Non Dispatchable Non-Tracking PV Tracking PV CPV Thermal Based Dispatchable (with storage) Dish-Engine Trough Tower LFR Installation Size <10kW 10 to 100 kW 100kW to 1MW 1 to 10 MW 10 to 100 MW > 100 MW Legend: best suited
2
1
Concentrating Solar Rising
Concentrating Solar Power - 2008
Solar electricity is clean, often with very little environmental
im-•
pact, particularly in the greenhouse gas emitting dimension that is driving much of the international debate on climate change. Solar electricity is local, allaying the risks of access to and physical
•
and economic control over critical energy supplies.
Solar electricity is available to nearly everyone worldwide at some
•
cost and using some available technology – a statement that is not true of nearly every other renewable energy technology being pursued from wind to waves to geothermal.
Finally, the available solar resources are thousands of times more
•
than human society consumes each year, providing ample oppor-tunity for increasing per capita energy use – even in a world of simultaneously increasing population and wealth.
Among solar electricity generation technologies, photovoltaic (PV) tech-nologies have seen the largest growth in interest over the last few years. As shown in Figure 1-1, PV has emerged primarily at the very smallest type of deployment – often on the home or commercial building and provid-ing power on the customer’s side of the meter at a relatively high (retail) value. By 2008, PV has nearly eight GW of cumulative global grid-tied installations and is expected to grow by another three to four GW in 2008 - and growth should increase in subsequent years. Driven by various policy programs in Japan, Germany, the US, Spain, and many other countries, PV is increasingly seen as a viable alternative for electricity generation – growing in volume globally second only to wind power among renewable energy technologies and at a faster percentage.
Policy-led demand for solar energy and global growth rates of 40 to 50 per-cent each year has led to reper-cent supply bottlenecks in PV manufacturing, most notably in the highly capital- and energy-intensive polysilicon feed-stock needed for 90 percent of the PV produced today. Large scale utility and industrial users are increasingly interested in solar technologies that may be more useable in central station applications – including those that can be more rapidly scalable, inherently “dispatchable” or predictable, and possibly those generating heat versus direct electricity to supplement existing heat-driven power plants. Many potential concentrating solar technologies are being pursued in an attempt to meet these needs.
The two great challenges to using more solar electricity remain its perceived high cost and the nature of solar to be both periodic and not absolutely re-liable, a characteristic that makes its use in conjunction with modern grids problematic. This report looks at all of the available concentrating solar power technologies in or near commercialization and the methods of stor-ing and dispatchstor-ing them, bestor-ing driven by dozens of companies around the world. Using baseline PV installations and economics as a benchmark for evaluating performance and future economics, it shows how the different system characteristics create different value offerings for different cus-tomers. In the end, what this report fi nds is that each concentrating solar technology is suited to slightly different needs, but that many technologies have interesting market opportunities in the years ahead for those that can understand how this exciting market will develop over time.
1
Concentrating Solar Rising
1.1 Technology
The technologies examined in this report include all current available and potential technologies near commercialization in concentrating solar power (CSP) for electricity generation. Looking at Table 1-1, these technologies break down into two general categories.
The fi rst is Concentrating Solar Thermal (CST), which includes those concen-trating the sun’s energy on a thermal conductor and then using that heat to move an engine or turbine. These usually take the form of a large power plant and can concentrate using mirrors in a line or around a point. The mirror array can be concave or fl at - concentrating from 80 suns for the linear arrays (including trough systems and LFR) to over 1500 suns on the point arrays (including tower and dish-engine systems), with corresponding temperatures and variations of technology components to convert the heat into useful electricity. Because they generate heat, CST systems have rela-tively more costs in the operation and maintenance versus PV systems, but create the advantage of potentially storing the heat or using it in a hybrid confi guration to make the power dispatchable – a signifi cant advantage in integrating the power into modern grid architectures.
Alternatively, Concentrating Photovoltaic (CPV) technologies concentrate the sun’s energy directly onto high effi ciency PV materials to directly create electricity. These technologies use both mirrors and lenses and can be de-ployed in confi gurations that range from large systems to mid-sized systems, with some technologies even able to be done at small modular scale similar to traditional PV modules. CPV technologies tend to have fewer, but often still meaningful, tracking and other moving parts than CST systems, reducing relative operating costs. However, the direct electricity generation compli-cates the harnessing and storage of electricity with today’s electric storage technology and limits CPV’s ability to be dispatchable. Still, substituting mir-rors or lenses for expensive PV in systems has the potential to reduce the total system cost when scale and technology improve from today’s levels.
1.2 Cost
Regardless of which CSP technology is chosen, correctly assessing the cost of solar electricity and further engineering to bring it down over time is their key challenge. The cost of solar electricity – measured using a standardized
Table 1-2: Complete CSP Systems
1 1 Technology
CSP systems can be made of any combination of concentrators and power converters. However, distinct combinations have emerged and are summarized in this table. These technologies are broken into the two main categories of Concentrating Solar Thermal (CST) and Concentrating Photovoltaic (CPV) technologies. While this table shows the degree of variation between CSP technologies, another level of variation exists within each of these technologies that will be explored in the following sections.
CSP Type System Concentrator Technology Power Conversion
CST
Trough Parabolic Trough Rankine Cycle
LFR Linear Fresnel Refl ector Rankine Cycle
Tower Heliostat Solar Field Rankine / Brayton Cycle
Dish-Engine Parabolic Dish Stirling / Brayton Engine
CPV
Dish CPV Parabolic Dish Multi-Junction or Silicon PV
Lens CPV Lens of Fresnel Lens Multi-Junction PV
LCPV Low Concentration Refl ector Silicon PV
4
1
Concentrating Solar Rising
Concentrating Solar Power - 2008
Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) – is dependent on many variables related to the site and the tech-nology chosen. These factors are all considered in determining relative economics herein.
In terms of the location, it turns out that latitude of where the installation exists matters a great deal. Latitude is important for two reasons. First, total available irradiance has a strong impact of the economics of all solar electricity generation, but particularly for concentrating solar where fi xed costs and operation and maintenance is less scalable with the size of the system versus tradi-tional PV. Second, the reliance of most CSP sys-tems on tracking syssys-tems and the incident angle of light at different latitudes has a fi rst order ef-fect on the LCOE. Offsetting efef-fects of atmospher-ic interference and optimal tracking confi guration does more acutely limit the range of locations that CSP technologies can optimally use to high sun and middle latitude applications, but fortunately the power needs in those locations is vast com-pared to CSP’s current penetration.
From a technology standpoint, the largest eco-nomic hurdle CSP technologies must overcome is their reliance on only the direct irradiation por-tion of the solar resource, or the part of the light that is perpendicular to the collector – known as Direct Normal Irradiation, or DNI. Depending on location, DNI can range from 60 to 80 percent of the total available light that is available to fl at-plate PV, and maximizing its capture is what requires the use of complex and precise tracking systems for most CSP technologies. This penalty is offset by higher effi ciency of conversion by both CST and CPV technologies, but has interesting ramifi cations on system design and technology choice across dif-ferent locations and users.
Regardless of the LCOE that the various technologies can achieve today, the most interesting analysis is how that will change over time with cost im-provements and scale of production. Figure 1-2 shows how the cost for both CST and CPV - as well as traditional PV - will change through 2020, and it shows this comparison for two different locations in the US – Tucson and Seattle. The assumptions that go into these forecasts are expanded in the report, and alternative methods of calculation are provided.
In the end, however, scale of production matters to determine which tech-nologies and companies will be best placed to take advantage of the mar-kets. This is because LCOE will be a function of the cumulative deployment of a technology and the current scale of its installations and experience of its installers. Unfortunately for any emerging CSP technology, PV’s dropping component and system prices and current scale advantages will create a de-clining hurdle that they will have to match in order to become viable.
Figure 1-2: LCOE trend over time at two different locations in United States
1
Concentrating Solar Rising
1.3 Market
Understanding the cost of solar is not enough, the value of the electricity generated versus the cost is what will drive the market economics and technology adoption. Though often thought of as expensive to generate, so-lar electricity technologies do create electricity at the most valuable time of the day – during peak daylight hours. Therefore, solar en-ergy is by its nature a high value electricity at both the wholesale and retail levels, displacing the need for ex-pensive (often) natural gas fi red intermediate power generators that are subject to substantial swings in fuel prices.
How the power is purchased is also important, and two methods have emerged – 1) retail/commercial customers who can buy power to replace the power they currently purchase from utilities, and (2) the utility them-selves either directly or through wholesale power markets. Figure 1-3 shows the number of companies that this report tracks that are attempt-ing to serve each of those markets.
The utility market is the most popular market for CSP companies, for both technological and scale reasons. Installations have recently been an-nounced for thousands of MW of peak capacity of CSP, and many more are being considered. Utilities are looking to CSP to help them meet Renew-able Portfolio Standards (RPS) set by states and nations, and CSP instal-lations allow for a very rapid volume ramp to meet those goals. In such cases, utilities often plan to purchase the power directly under a Power Purchase Agreement, but longer term it is possible that CSP providers can sell directly into the wholesale power markets – particularly when storage allows for dispatchability and shifting of loads to the most valuable times of the day – a distinct advantage to today’s CST technologies with thermal storage described in an Appendix to the report.
The changing policy landscape will also likely infl uence, and accelerate, the deployment of CSP. Changes and enhancements of RPS programs, rising value for carbon offsets, and increasing comfort with the reliability and effi cacy of the technologies will combine to further support solar electricity in general and CSP in specifi c. One note of caution is that unpredictable changes or volatility in policy may have correspondingly volatile effects on CSP deployment over short time frames.
Figure 1-3: Number of CSP companies targeting each market segment
The utility market is the most popular market for CSP companies, for both technological and market-oriented reasons. While some technologies are confi ned to the utility market, modular technologies are not, but are mostly focusing on the utility market with plans to expand to distributed residential and commercial markets.
6
1
Concentrating Solar Rising
Concentrating Solar Power - 2008
1.4 Conclusion
Our research has led to three main conclusions about the impact of CSP on the solar energy industry and the broader energy markets in the next decade.
CSP clearly has a role to play over the next decade
With the current plants, those in construction, those under consideration, and the pace of development, it is clear that some tens of GW of cumula-tive production over the next decade – possibly as much as 50 GW – of CSP capacity will be installed by 2020. This would represent somewhere between $80 Billion and $200 Billion of aggregate investment in the sec-tor over the next 12 years. In just the last six months, over $30 Billion in new plants have been proposed, and many of these will be constructed in the next several years.
Although PV is projected to have a lower cost than CST in the medium to long term, CST will play a role in utility scale installations due to storage capabilities and other benefi ts to utilities and societies. Trough technolo-gies will be implemented fi rst and will experience incremental technical improvements and cost reductions. CPV technologies will suffer from slower ramping and scale, but should become competitive at the utility scale within the next decade, and some recently emerging non-tracking and low concentration CPV technologies may have an interesting impact at the distributed residential and commercial level as well.
PV will remain dominant in the distributed market
That said, fl at plate PV for distributed applications and some fi xed or single-axis tracking systems for central systems will remain econnomi-cally competitive. PV has seen limited price declines for its components and systems in the last few years due to some feedstock constraints, but innovation and additional capital are going to remedy those problems soon. At the distributed level, low operating and maintenance costs will
1
Concentrating Solar Rising
likely be determinative. Unless CSP technologies can match those of PV, the distributed market will be tough for CSP technology to penetrate. And the PV industry’s scale and ability to serve more markets than CSP will drive ongoing cost improvements for decades to come.
Centralized Generation Market up for Grabs
Figure 1-4 shows the base case forecast for the range of technologies, what markets they will serve, and what insolation conditions are optimal for each. While each of the technologies have core markets that they best serve, it is where the circles meet that is most interesting for evaluating competitive markets for solar technologies. The success of each will be de-termined by a number of things this report examines in detail including:
Irradiance location and type
•
Cost improvements over time
•
Availability of components
•
Need for and value of dispatchability
•
Diffi culty from and cost of transmission line upgrades
•
Changes in policy - international, national, and local
•
Emergence of low-cost grid electricity storage options
•
While future market share of the various technologies cannot be known, it is pretty clear that the collection of solar technologies described herein will soon be cheap enough to penetrate deeply into the need for expen-sive daytime power, and with storage, perhaps into base load and trans-portation energy as well.
Today, a number of solar energy technologies have arguably become cost effective. As a result, many should enjoy increasing market share and further price declines in the coming years. At the same time convention-al sources of energy will have increasing diffi culty in simply maintaining prices and production volumes in the face of fuel stock pressure and grid maintenance requirements. The combination will drive dominant solar electricity economics for decades to come, and CSP is poised to scale up quickly for the largest customers. Finally, the dawn of large scale con-centrating solar power is here, and the forecast shows hardly a cloud in the sky.
