On the Path to SunShot. Advancing Concentrating Solar Power Technology, Performance, and Dispatchability

Abstract

The U.S. Department of Energy launched the SunShot Initiative in 2011 with the goal of making solar electricity cost-competitive with conventionally generated electricity by 2020. At the time this meant reducing photovoltaic and concentrating solar power prices by approximately 75%relative to 2010 costs-across the residential, commercial, and utility-scale sectors. To examine the implications of this ambitious goal, the Department of Energy's Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) published the SunShot Vision Study in 2012. The study projected that achieving the SunShot price-reduction targets could result in solar meeting roughly 14% of U.S. electricity demand by 2030 and 27% by 2050-while reducing fossil fuel use, cutting emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, creating solar-related jobs, and lowering consumer electricity bills. The SunShot Vision Study (DOE 2012) also acknowledged, however, that realizing the solar price and deployment targets would face a number of challenges. Both evolutionary and revolutionary technological changes would be required to hit the cost targets, as well as the capacity to manufacture these improved technologies at scale in the U.S. Additionally, operating the U.S. transmission and distribution grids with increasing quantities of solar energy would require advances in grid-integration technologies and techniques. Serious consideration would also have to be given to solar siting, regulation, and water use. Finally, substantial new financial resources and strategies would need to be directed toward solar deployment of this magnitude in a relatively short period of time. Still the study suggested that the resources required to overcome these challenges were well within the capabilities of the public and private sectors. SunShot-level price reductions, the study concluded, could accelerate the evolution toward a cleaner, more costeffective and more secure U.S. energy system. That was the assessment in 2012. Today, at the halfway mark to the SunShot Initiative's 2020 target date, it is a good time to take stock: How much progress has been made? What have we learned? What barriers and opportunities must still be addressed to ensure that solar technologies achieve cost parity in 2020 and realize their full potential in the decades beyond? To answer these questions, SETO launched the On the Path to SunShot series in early 2015 in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and with contributions from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). The series of technical reports focuses on the areas of grid integration, technology improvements, finance and policy evolution, and environment impacts and benefits. The resulting reports examine key topics that must be addressed to achieve the SunShot Initiative's price-reduction and deployment goals. The On the Path to SunShot series includes the following reports: • Emerging Issues and Challenges with Integrating High Levels of Sola...

Overview of the Enablers and Barriers for a Wider Deployment of CSP Tower Technology in Europe

“…All new technologies, especially renewable energies, can face different barriers in order to be developed in a structured and well-functioning energy system. Although utilities, which appreciate the CSP dispatchability, are really glad to give it access to the grid [3,9,71,72], planning and permitting processes can be slow in many countries since authorities are familiar with PV and other renewables but not with CSP [73]. This issue has delayed grid access as well as permissions or access to water or gas networks for many CSP plants.…”

Luminescent Solar Power—PV/Thermal Hybrid Electricity Generation for Cost-Effective Dispatchable Solar Energy

“…We note that LCOE estimation is challenging for any new concept. Here, we rely on the well-established LCOE of CSP with recent bids at 7¢/kWh LCOE for CSP 5 and an additional heliostat field at an LCOE of 1.7¢/kWh 38 . Additional costs of the PV and the PL-absorber add 0.23¢/kWh to our valuation 39 , which is in agreement with the relatively small portion of the receiver's costs in CSP 34 .…”

The Potential Role of Concentrating Solar Power within the Context of DOE's 2030 Solar Cost Targets

“…Utility-scale PV achieved its 2020 cost target in 2017 (DOE 2017), and its deployment to date has exceeded levels in the SunShot Vision Study (DOE 2012) for 2020. Recent estimates for the LCOE of CSP-TES with a molten-salt power tower system are approximately $0.10/kWh (Mehos et al 2016) for projects that are expected to come online in 2020, which represents a substantial reduction since 2010-when the LCOE for CSP-TES was around $0.21/kWh (Mehos et al 2016). Moreover, power purchase agreements (PPAs) in late 2017 for two international power tower systems that were designed to primarily provide peaking services approached the cost target of $0.06/kWh for 2020 (Feldman and Margolis 2018).…”