Talk:Concentrated solar power

Wrong name Mac
Note: This section was written when this page was named Concentrating solar energy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.125.109.134 (talk) 04:01, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

This page should probably be called Concentrated solar power (CSP). Here's an informative source: Desertec Here's a classification breakdown that includes Concentrating solar thermal (CST) and Concentrating PV (CPV) under the CSP umbrella. Greentech Mrshaba (talk) 18:40, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I have to disagree. You site an article that is specifically about Concentrated Solar Thermal systems. In solar power right now, there is a fundamental dichotomy between CPV systems and CST systems. They are collectively referred to as CSP systems for Concentrated Solar Power systems which is useful when looking at them from a legislative or utility perspective. However, the advantages, disadvantages, features and details of the systems are different enough that separating them into two categories is useful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicolas.morgan (talk • contribs) 17:47, 24 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Nicholas... I think you came here because of a merger tag but my post doesn't concern merging CPV into this article. The merger tag was placed by Nopetro who seems to be a sockpuppet of the fellow that named this page incorrectly in the first place. What a mess. CPV certainly deserves it's own page and shouldn't be merged. I'm saying this page should be renamed "Concentrating solar power" or possibly "Concentrating solar". Mrshaba (talk) 23:36, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Misleading PS10 image
The image of PS10 currently used is misleading, as the panels in the foreground are actually PV panels part of a different installation located next to the PS10 solar thermal field. This image should be replaced with an image that shows both the PS10 tower and the actual mirrored heliostats that are used to reflect the light. Orthabok (talk) 00:06, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Prometheus Institute?
Why was I redirected to this page when searching for the Prometheus Institute?--XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO (talk) 13:05, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Good question. Prometheus Institute is a company that researches solar development. It could be significant enough to have it's own page. If not, that is why it is here. If you want, you could ask User: Mac why, since he was the one who originally redirected Prometheus Institute to a solar power page. NightFalcon90909 (talk) 16:14, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Mere solar mirrors
At the article, we read the following line: Although a wide range of concentrating technologies exist, the most developed are the solar trough, parabolic dish, and solar power tower.

For the solar trough; this means Parabolic trough ? I thought there were 2 types; mere flat mirrors and parabolic ones. There are also V-type troughs using flat mirrors. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1978PhDT.......157S

The parabolic trough focuses the rays on a tube in the center, not clear in article where the energy is concentrated

Solar chimneys are not mentioned see http://tomkonrad.wordpress.com/2006/12/07/they-do-it-with-mirrors-concentrating-solar-power/

Also mention the mirror alignment measuring device: http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2007/trough.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.246.171.66 (talk) 16:04, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Wrong units?
The article ends with:

It predicted a drop from .15 to .23 euros currently per kilowatt, to .10 to .14 euros a kilowatt.

This is an accurate quote from the cited article. It doesn't make sense. These are reasonable values for cost per kilowatt-hour. Figures given elsewhere in the article suggest that the capital cost to build a kilowatt of generating capacity is more like 4000 Euros. Densely (talk) 04:15, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

The cost per kWH will depend on overhead and expected plant lifetime. If the cost of a 250MW plant is $750M, generating 12 hours per day, $0.12-0.18 seems reasonable for, say, a 10 year lifespan with low overhead and investment return around 6%. But if the thing lasts 50 years, the cost for consumers will largely depend on operating costs and profit margin. What are the assumptions being made here to come to the $0.12-0.18 figure? It's not clear from the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.252.204.129 (talk) 15:56, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Verified results or not ?
In http://cmsprod.bgu.ac.il/Eng/Units/bidr/News/Israel++First+Solar+Farm.htm it is written that "ZenithSolar, an Israeli start-up company to license revolutionary solar energy technologies, launched its first “solar farm” on April 26, 2009 based on Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) systems in the presence of President of the State of Israel Shimon Peres, Minister of Infrastructure Uzi Landau and Minister of Science and Technology Prof. Daniel Herschkowitz. Developed by Prof. David Faiman, Chairman of the Department of Solar Energy and Environmental Physics at the University’s Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, the system will harvest more than 70% of incoming solar energy (as compared to industry norms of 10% to 40%)."

Is that a verified result ? If it is, defenitively ought to be included in this article, shouldn't it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.113.57.177 (talk) 18:58, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * It appears that they use water to cool their solar cell and count the production of domestic hot water toward that energy efficiency figure. Rmhermen (talk) 20:15, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Merge proposal
 I propose to merge Concentrated Photovoltaics (CPV) into this article as an article about the same topic. Concentrated photovoltaics is redirects here. Beagel (talk) 14:35, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Withdrawn my proposal. Beagel (talk) 05:36, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Support per Beagel. Johnfos (talk) 20:51, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Support per Beagel. Lars9e (talk) 05:05, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Support largely the same topic. Rehman(+) 02:54, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose Bad idea.  Concentrated photovoltaics is definitely not the same topic. Concentrated solar power uses mirrors to focus high-temperature thermal energy to generate power from steam turbines or heat engines. Concentrated photovoltaics uses a lens or reflectors to focus more sunlight onto relatively expensive semiconductor material. The word "concentrated" is the same and the result is the same (electricity) but the processes are completely different and the engineering is completely different. Joja  lozzo  15:02, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Perhaps if we move this article to a broader concentrated solar energy title, we could merge both the electrical and non-electrical topics. Rehman(+) 15:10, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The inclusion of CPV in this article appears to be somebody's misunderstanding of the terminology. CSP is solely thermal, not PV. I didn't do an exhaustive review but the references to CSP that I looked at all compared it to PV as a separate technology. The CPV sections here should be removed or merged with Concentrated Photovoltaics (CPV). Joja  lozzo  15:18, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi Jojalozzo. Just check on your facts. I believe you are right; CSP largely refers to thermal (or shall I say CTP?). Although, it would be great if there could be a parent article covering both the "Concentrated" subtopics. Any idea of what the article could be named as? Just dumped my current solar structure out: Any comments? Restructuring? Rehman(+) 15:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Solar energy: The main parent covering all light, heat or electrical energy from the sun
 * Solar power: Subtopic of solar energy. Covering the electrical section.
 * Flat-panel photovoltaics? (then what about Photovoltaics?)
 * Concentrated photovoltaics
 * Solar thermal energy: Subtopic of solar energy. Covering the thermal (or heat) section. This could be largely a subtopic of Solar thermal energy.
 * Concentrated solar energy (yes?)


 * As I said, there's very little utility in combining these topics. They share the concept of "concentrate" and the product, electricity, but the technologies do not overlap or relate to one another. CSP and CPV do not belong together.  Joja  lozzo  17:20, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Move proposal

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved.  GB fan  14:49, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Concentrating solar power → — Better title. Or even concentrated solar energy depending on the previous discussion. Rehman(+) 15:13, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Support  Oppose : I am strongly in favor of the industry terminology, which is Concentrating solar power . Joja  lozzo  00:00, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * But, being an industry terminology, the current title only gets 260,000 g-hits, compared to the proposed title's 380,000. Rehman(+) 01:14, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I stand corrected. There are many companies that use the term concentrated solar power. I think it is better grammar also. Let's get some refs in the article that use that terminology. Joja  lozzo  02:21, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Note, in WP I see 83 mentions of concentrating solar power and 30 for concentrated solar power. Might be nice to unify this some day. Joja  lozzo  02:26, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Remove CPV sections
A lot of the problems with this article can begin to be resolved by eliminating the sections on CPV and keeping it focused properly on CSP. CPV is not CSP. CSP is a thermal technology and CPV is a semiconductor technology. Tom Konrad] appears to be the source for lumping them together but he is not an industry expert, just a self-described "policy wonk" doing his own original, incorrect categorizing. There is no utility in combining CPV and CSP since they share nothing technologically. Those in the CSP industry are clear on this. Let's fix this article to be compliant with industry terminology. Joja lozzo  15:35, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I have copied all the CPV material from here into the CPV article. I see no reason to keep anything about CPV here. Any comments, encouragement or objections? Joja lozzo  23:57, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


 * No offence, but I believe what you did is not as right as it should be; the discussions are still in progress. You should at least wait till its closed. Rehman(+) 01:17, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It may feel like I'm being preemptive but nothing I have done has effected a merge to this article. Instead I improved the article that is proposed for being merged in here. Do you have feedback on my "remove CPV" proposal? Joja  lozzo  02:13, 10 August 2010 (UTC)


 * You're right. Sorry, I didn't check through. :) Rehman(+) 03:37, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Someone added a paragraph about CPV at the beginning of the Efficiency section. It was merged from another article, which now redirects here and I don't speak enough Wikipedia to know how to remove it without possibly breaking stuff. 178.182.67.37 (talk) 17:30, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Exactly, I just copy-edited some of the academic exceess in section "Efficiency" when I realized that the first paragraph and the image are inappropriate.
 * Total spectrum solar concentrator.png
 * I'll will outcomment these two bits of content, and - if no one responds - move the content to Concentrated Photovoltaics (BTW: from which "other article" came this content?). - Rfassbind (talk) 12:39, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Rotary Steam Engine
No innovation is welcome unless it is carefully studied and understood. New concept like the Quasiturbine Air (storage) / Steam Engine has a perfectly balanced rotor and joined torque pulses for quasi-continuous steam flow and torque. It is a sort of hybrid between Conventional Turbine and Rotary Wankel, being a low-rpm-high-torque uniflow positive displacement rotary design, particularly suitable for direct drive Solar steam power system.

As a first introduction to this new QT technology, one can have a look at the University of Connecticut « Brash Quasiturbine QT.6LSC Air / Steam Car » Video : All day long Run (0,3 min.) and Variable speed Run (9 min.) and more on Brash power system For these reasons, readers interested by Thermal Concentrated Solar Power may want to know about the Quasiturbine for a complete Solar thermal overview. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.56.253.176 (talk) 20:14, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Quoted price of nuclear?
From the article: "To put this in perspective, Arizona Public Service (APS), Arizona‘s largest utility company, purchases power from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station at a cost of 1.65 cents per kilowatt-hour".

Question: perhaps if this nuclear power station is state-owned, the price paid for electricity only covers the operational and not the capital cost? I have heard levelised energy costs for nuclear that are significantly higher. Jdpipe (talk) 06:20, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


 * It anyway appears daring to draw such a parallel, as there has not yet been found a single place to store the nuclear waste. One could mention that casually. --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 08:19, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Have to agree, since the Wikipedia article on the Palo Verde plant currently says that it's 29.1% owned by APS, so they're probably getting a special rate. Also, it says that the wholesale price of the electricity was 6.33 cents per kWh in 2007, and 2.5 cents per kWh in 2002. The quoted price of solar is unsupported in the cited link also. I added a section on that. Essentially, you can't tell what power will cost just from the construction costs, you also need to know the plants operational lifetime and its operating costs. Also, if the construction costs are a loan, you need to know the terms. Too many numbers given in the energy industry are misleading enough to amount to outright lies. Kieran M O&#39;Callaghan (talk) 19:43, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Unsupported price claim
From the article: "As of 9 September 2009 (2009 -09-09)[update], the cost of building a CSP station was typically about US$2.50 to $4 per watt,[19] while the fuel (the sun's radiation) is free. Thus a 250 MW CSP station would have cost $600–1000 million to build. That works out to $0.12 to $0.18/kwh." This is pretty much a paraphrase of the quoted article, but for starters $2.50 times 250 million is $625 million. More importantly, it works out to $2500 to $4000 per kilowatt of capacity. Wattage tells us how much power the plant puts out continuously (well, on average). The statement on $0.12 to $0.18 per kilowatt-hour is unsupported because you can't figure out the kilowatt-hours without knowing how long the plant will last and what the operational costs are. The cited article says nothing about that, although it does make the clearly unsupported claim of $0.12 to $0.18 per kilowatt-hour. There are approximately 8766 hours in a year, so if the example plant has no operating costs, then the quoted prices would mean that the plant would only last $2500/$0.12/8766 years = 2.377 years for the low cost and $4000/$0.18/8766 years = 2.535 years. That's not realistic, so we have to assume a plant lifetime. If pull a more realistic number out of the air and say the plant can last a highly probable 30 years, then that's $2500/(30*8766) = $0.0095 per kilowatt hour on the low end, or $4000/(30*8766)= $0.0152 per kilowatt on the high end, once again without operational costs. If we take those base figures and apply them to the quoted prices from the article, then that's $0.1105 operational costs per kwh on the low end and $0.1648 on the high end. For the whole plant, that works out to $242,160,750 per year on the low end and $361,159,200 per on the high end for operational costs. Similar numbers come out for any realistic plant lifetime. That means yearly operational costs greater than a third of the plants construction costs. According to http://nuclearfissionary.com/2010/03/15/operating-costs-of-a-nuclear-power-plant/ operating costs for a nuclear power plant are about $0.0186 per kWh, which works out to $0.0186*8766*250,000=$40761900/year for an equivalent nuclear plant. It's hard to imagine that a nuclear power plant would have operating costs 6 or more times lower than a solar plant. Essentially, the quoted numbers have to be either just pulled out of the air or they come from some other calculation that doesn't appear in the cited article. Kieran M O&#39;Callaghan (talk) 08:52, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The numbers in the article were calculated based on the expected output. Solar power does not operate 24 hours a day (the sun does set each day), and the calculation of 12 to 18 cents/kWh for construction costs of $2.50 to $4.00/watt seems about what should be expected. The paper gives the formula for calculating LCOE as LCOE = summation ((I + M + F)/(1 + r)^t)/(E/(1+r)^t) where I is the investment cost, M is the maintenance, F is the fuel cost (0 for CSP), r is the discount rate, t is the year, and E is the annual generation, which is a function of the amount of sunshine where the plant is located. Apteva (talk) 06:42, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Solar refrigeration and solar desalination plants using CSP technology.
CSP plants may not be competitive to the PV plants to generate electricity but they are more economical in the centralised solar HVAC systems and solar desalination plants. The steam generated by the CSP plants can be used in Vapour absorption refrigeration units with better overall efficiency compared to vapour compression refrigeration units with solar electricity as input energy. To meet the cold air requirement of HVAC system during the night time when solar light is not available, ice/ congealed oil is produced for night time use.

Similarly, the steam generated by the CSP plants can be used in multi effect desalination plants with better overall efficiency compared to Reverse osmosis plants with solar electricity as input energy.

The above aspects need to be added in the main article. 49.207.221.221 (talk) 17:57, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

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Ivanpah in lead needs updating
In 2015 Ivanpah made 69% of its yearly capacity, rather than the 40% stated here (which most likely referred to 2014). http://breakingenergy.com/2015/06/17/ivanpah-solar-production-up-170-in-2015/ I don't really understand why this is in the lead anyway, it should be in a later section.137.111.13.204 (talk) 04:54, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Remove the section on 'Solar Thermal Enhanced Oil Recovery'
Section 3, 'Solar thermal enhanced oil recovery' is a very obscure and random topic to warrant its own section. It distracts the reader from gaining a general overview of CSP. The page on solar thermal enhanced oil recovery should be linked under 'See Also.' Additionally, a section headed 'Additional Applications' may be a useful place for this topic if other applications other than basic electricity and steam generation are known. --Mrab94 (talk) 01:45, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Also, why is the line about the University of Arizona telescope designer in the "Future" section focusing on CPV in this article. This article does is about CSP, not CPV and this line will only confuse the lay reader about the two's similar name. --Mrab94 (talk) 01:51, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Molten salt reference does not work
Reference 23, "Molten salt as a CSP plant working fluid" does not work. When the link is clicked on a page with the phrase "404 Not Found" pops up. I was unable to definitively find the source that the user was originally intending. However, I am changing the reference from the non-working link to a scientific review article titled, "Heat transfer fluids for concentrating solar power systems - A review." Any interested viewer can now click on this link to get a description of molten salt and other potential HTFs.--Mrab94 (talk) 02:00, 29 January 2017 (UTC)


 * This article appears to be quite neutral, with no detectable biases. The information provided in it are also mainly related to the topic of solar power.Sakthikumar arizona (talk) 04:32, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Solar Turbine Plants
It seems to me that the articles cover the same topic. There is a lot of overlap. Ita140188 (talk) 23:50, 2 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Strong support. That seems to be an old orphaned article that only recently came to light. Reh  man  02:00, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Support. Tdslk (talk) 16:01, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

✅. I have redirected that article here, since it is just a subtopic within this article.

There may be useful references, text, and images in the most recent version of that article. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:28, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

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Adding images
Maybe we can add this image to the page? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Concentrated_solar_power_-_concentrated_solar_thermal_icon.png --Tommaso.sansone91 (talk) 11:33, 18 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Why? --Ita140188 (talk) 11:47, 18 March 2019 (UTC)