Richard Thonig

Aber Technologieneutral isser, das ist die Hauptsache

- we need to have a rough long-term plan out to 2040-50 because industrial plant, ships and planes have lifetimes of 30-40 years; solutions need to slot into those reinvestment cycles

Time for 2025 updates to my annual “opinions about solar” thread. If you like these, you might like the second edition of my book, Solar Power Finance Without The Jargon. A 30% discount code WSQ0437 is valid on publisher website until end of November 2025.

www.worldscientific.com/worldscibook...

In 2024, there was little commercial CSP activity outside of China.

In South Africa, the long-delayed 100 MW Redstone project came online in 2024.

China’s CSP market is growing rapidly, with some 8.1 GW of projects in various stages of development, construction and commissioning at the end of 2024 – more than the total installed capacity globally in 2024 (7.2 GW).

350 MW of CSP generation capacity was connected to the grid in 2024, 250 MW of which in China.

For those interested in current developments in CSP I had the privilege of writing some 2 pages that ended up on a nice slide format.
Check out:
@ren21community.bsky.social
fact sheet on CONCENTRATED SOLAR THERMAL POWER (CSP)

www.ren21.net/gsr-2025/dow...

So cool. Although I observe you were a bit lazy on the Heliostats.

Crescent Dunes

aerial shot of Crescent Dunes

I think this is Ivanpah

Heliostat

if concentrated solar power is so bad then why does it look so fucking cool? checkmate liberals

Great thoughts from a crown-ready head.

Excited to announce we've joined BlueSky just in time for #IST25! Follow @transitionsnetwork.bsky.social for conference updates and highlights from Lisbon throughout this exciting week!

👉 Want your conference highlights shared on our official channels? Tag our account and use #IST25

"This Gobi, once a land of hardship and bitter cold, has become a plain of hope,"

By the end of 2024, the first batch of 50 new energy base projects ... had been basically completed and put into operation, with a total installed capacity exceeding 90 GW.
www.globaltimes.cn/page/202505/...

Wir warteten auf Christian #keineverboteundgebote Lindner, demnächst auf Jens #technologieneutralität Spahn.

Having said that, I heard a talk by a FirstSolar guy from Chile once, that essentially said, that PV plants can now modulate in ms as well, so spinning gerneration is not strictly speaking needed any more.

I think the problem may not have been spinning reserve, but I'm not a grid guy.

It doesn't make sense.
Unfortunately, it also doesn't make sense to run CSP at noon when you already have saturated the grid with cheap PV. This is an artifact of the feed-in-tariff legislation.

How did China develop the world's most impressive supply chain? In no small part due to focusing public support on incentivising scale-ups. Contrast with US + EU where public funding tends to focus on R&D. Y axis is % of GDP

Seems like the Gobi desert is an exciting place for energy research these days. While Ivanpah is now closing in the US, the Chinese just opened this peak shaving CSP plant:
110MW CSP with 8 h of storage + 640 MW PV for on average $1000/kW.
www.pv-magazine.com/2024/12/18/s...

Agreed. Of course the same applies to Thorium reactors as well.

Having said that, if the Chinese numbers hold up, we are looking at some pretty cheap CSP, with concrete plans how to reach levelized cost in the $5 cent/KWh hour range by 2030 in China. Not bad for green dispatchable power.

warum war 2024 so "schlecht"? @plehmann.bsky.social

What happened with Crescent Dunes? The trailblazing Crescent Dunes CSP project is operating again under new owners - this time just delivering solar for night

In the US, Crescent Dunes has this capability. And after several years, the project now seems to run more or less well; if you believe this anonymous engineer, Groupo ACS is actually making some money with it:

www.solarpaces.org/what-happene...

it produces power when PV can't. Fundamentally different than Ivanpah, that didn't include storage.

They seem to have some good molten-salt engineers over there.

Seems like the Gobi desert is an exciting place for energy research these days. While Ivanpah is now closing in the US, the Chinese just opened this peak shaving CSP plant:
110MW CSP with 8 h of storage + 640 MW PV for on average $1000/kW.
www.pv-magazine.com/2024/12/18/s...

Which would be Péter? I just observed that 3/4 candidates are named some variation of Peter.
Even though the first pope was Peter, the name seems to be out of fashion for popes these days.

Next stop Pope Peter, it seems.

We can't afford another Altmeierknick.
But I'm looking forward to the obituaries for the German steel industry:" Wo gehobelt wird, da fallen Spähne."

Fantastic report, as every year!

made my day, als Energieexperte.

Danke für den unpaywall link, da war ich schonmal vorbei gescrolled :)