CSP World

How many times have we read or heard this expression?

Is it true every time we read "the largest" in the headlines?

How many "largest" CSP plants are there?

I have been thinking about this topic since some time ago and I finally decided to try to put some light about this issue.

Before getting into the topic, we should do some clarifying. We'll refer to a CSP plant as a facility with a solar field and a power block fed by the solar field. And why we say this?, because many of the "largest" CSP plants that have been published in the medias are in fact CSP complex comprised by several CSP plants together, but every one has its own solar field and its own power block.

Another question is "What do we mean when we refer to the largest?", well we are talking about the output power, not the generation nor the land area it covers.

Once we have clarified this, now we can make a ranking with the largest CSP plants and CSP complex.

Until now (November 29, 2012 - 20:47 UTC) the largest CSP plants in operation are easy to rank:

1. SEGS IX - 80 MW
2. SEGS VIII - 80 MW
3. Martin Next - 75 MW
4. Nevada Solar One - 64 MW

The largest CSP plants under construction are not so easy to identify, but we'll try. By now Shams 1 in Abu Dhabi is a 100 MW plant, that will be operational next month, so it will be the largest plant under operation. But there are other plants under construction that will overpass Shams soon.

SolarReserve Crescent Dunes is a 110 MW plant to be complete by late 2013

Nextera's Genesis Solar is a 250 MW plant but it is comprised by two independent 125 MW plants to be complete by 2013 and 2014. Abengoa's Mojave Solar is also a 250 MW complex divided into two single 125 MW plants to be complete by 2015.

BrightSource's Ivanpah, a 377 MW complex is comprised by three single plants, the largest is Ivanpah 3 with 130 MW. It is expected to be complete by late 2013.

Abengoa's Solana is a 280 MW (gross) plant under construction, but like Mojave or Genesis, it's, in fact, two plants. It could appears that every plant is 140 MW, but this is gross power, so it's about 125 MW net each.

Once we have made this assessment, the largest will most probably be Ivanpah Unit 3.

And regarding to CSP complex, well, we should ask ourselves "How far can the plants be located from each other?", let's say 100 meters, 1 km, 10 km … It's hard to say. By now I'm not going to answer this.

Let's take a look to currently operational CSP complexes:

1. Solucar - 180 MW *
2. SEGS (8 & 9) - 160 MW
3. SEGS (3, 4, 5, 6 & 7) - 150 MW
4. Andasol (1,2 & 3) - 150 MW

And now here comes the question again "How far can the plants be located from each other?", I ask this because the Soucar Platform is comprised by two blocks, a three parabolic trough plants block and a two power tower plants and the two blocks are about 1 km from each other. In the case of the SEGS plants, the two blocks are about 20 km from each other.

If we accept the SEGS 3 to 9 as a complex, then it would be 310 MW, and by now the largest complex and the ranking would be:

1. SEGS (3 to 9) - 310 MW
2. Solucar - 180 MW
3. Andasol - 150 MW

In the short term, the largest CSP complex will be Ivanpah with 377 MW, and in the mid to long term, Ouarzazate will be a 500 MW complex, Rio Mesa and Hidden Hills are also planned to be 500 MW each.

* The Solucar Platform is comprised by Solnova 1,3,4, PS20 and PS10.

All comments are welcome!