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Concentrated Solar Power Resurges as Scalable Solar Energy Alternative

Dec 20, '07 2:15 PM
for everyone

December 12, 2007

Press Release from Emerging Energy Research

Cambridge, MA, 11 December 2007

Dormant since the early 1990s, Concentrated Solar Power is undergoing a renaissance in the solar-rich areas of the world including Spain and the Southwestern US, according to a new study from Emerging Energy Research, a leading research and advisory firm analyzing clean and renewable energy markets. According to EER, solar CSP is the fastest growing utility-scale renewable energy alternative after wind power, with up to $20 billion expected to be invested in solar CSP over the next five years.

"With natural gas prices tripling and current volatility expected to continue, CSP is well-positioned to compete against other electricity generation technologies in the near-to-medium term," says EER Senior Analyst Reese Tisdale. "In countries such as the US and Spain with higher solar resources, land availability, and sufficient government support to kick-start the industry, utility-scale solar CSP technology has the potential to become an integral part of the generation mix."

Spain and the US are currently the two epicenters for the global CSP industry: CSP installations in these two countries are expected to surpass a combined 7,500 MW by 2020, according to EER's study. Spain's favorable feed-in tariffs provide the most stable regulatory environment in the short-term creating a slow but steady growth path for CSP alongside its history of wind power development, according to EER.

Outside Spain and the US, Italy, France, Portugal, and Greece are on the cusp of breaking through with CSP developments, as well as parts of the Middle East and North Africa. The southern European countries are looking at improved regulatory incentives to drive 3,200 MW of capacity installation by 2020.

"2007 has been a pivotal year for solar CSP development as developers Acciona Solar Power and Abengoa Solar have inaugurated 65 MW of parabolic trough and 11 MW of central receiver technologies, respectively," says Tisdale. With a 17-year history of proven parabolic trough technology and almost 6 GW in the announced project pipeline over the next five years, all indications are that solar CSP is moving to the forefront of renewable energy technologies.

Parabolic trough technology's decades of proven operation have made it the most credible of the leading solar CSP technologies, but the technology's head start will soon begin to diminish as central receiver and other technologies are realized at a commercial scale, according to EER's study. By 2010, the market will have a solid view of the potential offered by Central Receiver, Dish Engine, and Linear Fresnel technologies. "Abengoa has made a major step by installing its 11 MW central receiver project, PS10, outside of Seville," says Tisdale. "This project currently represents the first legitimate challenge to parabolic trough technology."

New players, including traditional wind developers, vying for leadership in the CSP market

The solar CSP industry has only just begun its resurgence, and as a result there has been a proliferation of new entrants up and down the value chain, according to EER's study, from technology innovators looking to change the economics of CSP to investors and IPPs looking to gain first-mover advantages by tying up sites.

At one end of the project development spectrum is a leading group of independent technology promoters - including Solel, Solar Millennium, Abengoa Solar, Ausra, BrightSource Energy, SkyFuel, and Stirling Energy Systems - which are looking to leverage their specialized technology capabilities to gain a competitive advantage. On the opposite end of the development value chain are those IPPs and utilities that have already built or acquired GW portfolios of renewable power generation assets and that are now investing in CSP, according to EER.

"It is no surprise that the largest owners of wind power plant globally are also emerging as significant players in CSP," says Tisdale. These players, led by Iberdrola, FPL Energy, Acciona, and EDP are looking to add CSP projects to their mounting wind portfolios as a means to diversity other utility scale technologies. FPL Energy, notes Tisdale, is currently the leading IPP investor in CSP with its ownership of seven solar plants in California built in the late 1980s.

"As the solar CSP industry evolves we can expect significant movement in both directions along the project value chain," says Tisdale. Technology promoters will fill out project execution capabilities, and utilities and IPPs will build upstream project pipelines and technology capabilities.

ABOUT THE STUDY

EER's Global CSP market study - Global Concentrated Solar Power Markets and Strategies, 2007-2020 - was released in December 2007. With over 200 pages of in-depth analysis, EER's study analyzes global CSP resources, market drivers, technology and cost trends, and provides competitive analysis of project developers and CSP power plant supply. This study is now available for purchase from EER. Follow this link for the Table of Contents and Order Information. For more information please contact Stephanie Aldock at 617-551-8483 or eermedia@emerging-energy.com

For Further Information

EER's New CSP Study - Concentrated Solar Power Markets and Strategies

EER Market Studies

Tags: renewable_energy, solar, concentrating, deserts, spain, usa, israel

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Israelis: 'Energy Towers' offer major source of alternative energy

Dec 11, '07 12:53 PM
for everyone

'Energy Towers' offer major source of alternative energy
By Deborah Frenkel December 07, 2007

Professor Dan Zaslavsky: We could easily produce between 15 to 20 times the total electricity the world uses today.

Israeli collaboration with Exxon fuels hopes for a greener future

Israel's Solel to build largest solar park in world in California

Israel's Ormat makes clean fuel that is good to go

Energy Tower

The Israeli inventors call it an Energy Tower, and if it's adopted worldwide it could become a major source of cheap electricity.

So what is it? Project founder, Professor Dan Zaslavsky of the Department of Agricultural Engineering at the Technion - Israel Institute of Science, explains. It's a tall tower, 1, 000 yards in height and 400 yardsin diameter, located somewhere hot and dry with a source of water at the ready nearby - either the sea, brackish estuarine, or drainage water.

The water is used to cool the air at the top of the tower. The heavier cooled air sinks downwards, gathers speed as it falls, finally powering turbines at the tower's base. Put simply, it's the principle of convection - warm air rises above cool air - a law so fundamental that it is taught in elementary schools.

"It's a radically simple idea," Zaslavsky told ISRAEL21c. "We could easily produce between 15 to 20 times the total electricity the world uses today."

Renewable energy is one of the hottest areas of growth these days. With global warming accelerating and fossil fuels expected to run out in decades, the hunt is on for alternative energy sources.

The Technion researchers began work on the Energy Tower in 1983 and since then more than 150 man-years have been spent on its development by professors, engineers, PhD students and even the Israel Electric Corporation.

They all agree that the project is sound in every respect except one - the lack of a major investor. "We need funds," says Zaslavsky. "The development stage is over; the work is viable. But there are a lot of obstacles to getting it off the ground."

Ironically, one of these obstacles has proven to be the very condition that has allowed the research to flourish - a burgeoning global interest in alternative energy sources. It's a crowded market now, Zaslavsky points out, and with so much politically and economically at stake, "everyone has his own baby."

This baby, though, aims higher than its competitors, and not just in a literal sense. According to Zaslavsky, the basic tower design could be easily modified to incorporate facilities enabling desalination, producing fresh water reserves at only half the cost of existing desalination technologies. Such reserves could then be used nearby for the production of bio-fuels such as sugar, for example, or used in fish farming, a remarkably energy-efficient form of agriculture.

"We can produce cheap desalinated water, we can irrigate the desert, we can produce bio-fuel, we can boost aquaculture," Zaslavsky recites.

His team estimates the running costs of the electricity for this project at 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, less than a third of the cost of electricity in Israel today, and far cheaper than any mooted alternative such as solar, hydro-electric or wind power.

Such promise might be enough to convince anyone of the technology's merits. But Zaslavsky isn't done yet. The team has calculated that the towers may actually be able to reverse the mechanism of global warming.

"There is a natural process by which the earth cools itself known as Hadley Cell Circulation. This naturally happens mostly over the equator, where air is already humid," he told ISRAEL21c. "But if we find a way to humidify desert air, this global cooling process can occur over desert latitudes too. And the energy towers work by doing exactly that."

It's a compelling scenario. But none of these benefits will ensue, of course, unless the towers actually get built. And while the team has already identified regions in about 40 countries where towers could be viable - in the Middle East, Australia, North Africa, California and Mexico, for example - construction remains a far-off dream.

"This technology is so fascinating and exciting," Zaslavsky enthuses. And indeed, the benefits the energy tower promises - a cheap, 24/7, eternally renewable source of power, combined with desalinated water, desert agriculture, plus some progress towards healing our planet's wounds - are undeniably huge.

But will that be enough to launch the project? Interest has come from a number of investors in the United States, the former USSR and elsewhere in the Middle East - but as yet, no deals are concluded.

So is there a real chance our future will be one of tower-power? "Oh, yes; in 25 years we could take over the world," he laughs. "But all we need is a chance today."