Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) in California

Economic, energy and environmental benefits investigated

The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) conducted a study to assess the effect of deploying Concentrating Solar Power Plants (CSP) in California. It investigated the economic return, the impact on the energy supply, as well as the environmental benefits. The final paper of the study has been published on TroughNet.

The NREL chose a 100 MW parabolic trough plant with six hours of storage as the representative CSP plant to focus the results of the study. Cumulative deployment scenarios of 2,100 MW and 4,000 MW between 2008 and 2020 were assumed. California has certainly enough potential CSP sites to realise such scenarios.

Comparison with natural gas plants

CSP was compared with natural gas power plants, since these are currently the most frequent choice in California (simple cycle gas plants for peak duty and combined cycle gas plants of intermediate duty). CSP plants are of the same order of magnitude as natural gas power plants. If they include six hours of storage capacity, they can combine the peak duty of simple cycle natural gas plants with the intermediate duty of combined cycle gas plants.

A higher cost, expected to gradually decrease

The Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE) of a CSP plant in the first deployment phase is estimated to be $148/MWh, which is higher than a combined cycle gas plant ($104/MWh), but lower than a simple cycle natural gas plant ($168/MWh). For plants installed in later stages of the development scenarios, CSP cost is expected to fall and the technology to become a competitive choice for both peaking and intermediate duties.

Economic and environmental benefits

The proposed CSP deployment scenarios would create the following benefits:

• Each dollar spent on CSP would contribute approximately $1.40 to California’s GDP, compared to $0.90 up to $1.00 for a dollar spent on natural gas plants
• CSP is expected to create 94 jobs for each 100 MW, compared to 56 jobs for a simple cycle natural gas plant and 13 jobs for a combined cycle natural gas plant
• CSP plants could reduce the impact of natural gas price increases and volatility on the price of electricity
• The 4,000 MW scenario would result in an annual reduction of 300 tons NOx emissions, 180 tons of CO emissions, and 7.6 million tons of CO₂ emissions.