Building a giant solar thermal power plant in the Sahara of North Africa to provide Europe with 15% of clean electricity, sounds like a plan with a bit of fantasy from a scientific madman. It is quietly going on in Europe; while in China across the ocean, it has gone through several degrees. After hesitation and twists and turns, the dream of solar thermal power generation began to move from behind the scenes to the front desk.
Shi Lishan, deputy director of the New Energy and Renewable Energy Division of the National Energy Administration, disclosed that China is about to launch the first round of bidding for solar thermal power generation concession projects. In the eyes of people in the industry, with the start of the first round of light and heat concession bidding, the feast of CSP will be opened soon.
“Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission recently announced that it will start two projects of 280 megawatts of photovoltaic power generation and 50 megawatts of solar thermal power generation. From the perspective of management, it is also hoped that they can understand their respective development stages and cost levels through bidding and promote The moderate development of the industry.†In an interview with the “China Sankei Shimbunâ€, Jiang Qian, the chief researcher of China Investment Advisor Energy Industry, said.
With China's largest solar thermal power project, the concession tender for the 50 MW project in Inner Mongolia, China officially opened the door to solar thermal power generation.
Prior to this, solar power generation mainly took the form of photovoltaic power generation, which used solar cells to convert light energy directly into electricity. Solar power stations built around the world today are basically photovoltaic power generation, and the installed capacity in 2009 alone reached more than 6,000 megawatts.
In fact, in the global context, the wave of solar thermal power is also emerging. Compared with photovoltaic power generation, solar thermal power generation collects solar thermal energy through a large-scale lighting mirror array, and provides steam through a heat exchange device to drive a conventional turbine generator to generate electricity.
According to statistics, at present, the installed capacity of solar thermal power plants used globally is about 700 megawatts, and 1,200 megawatts of projects under construction are being built. The installed capacity has been declared to be 12,600 megawatts. And these numbers are updated every week.
In the two reports released by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in May this year that praised solar power, IEA's expectations for CSP were more optimistic. It said that photothermal technology "does not increase the grid load and solves the energy storage problem very well." Hu Xuehao, deputy chief engineer of China Academy of Power Research Institute, told reporters of China Sankei Shimbun, “Because solar thermal power generation and thermal power are through steam turbines, plus solar thermal power generation with thermal storage systems, it will be more conducive to the stability of power systems. .
In a report released in 2005 by the European Solar Thermal Society, it is expected that by 2040, CSP will meet 5% of the world's electricity demand. By 2025, the total installed capacity of CSP will reach 36,000 MW. In the next 20 years, global CSP will have a huge market of 16.4 billion euros per year.
It is understood that the solar thermal requirements directly radiate 1900 kilowatt hours per square meter or more per year. This resource condition is only available in the United States and Europe, Spain, Africa and China. The United States and Spain have taken the lead. In China, the CSP project has only just begun and there are large areas of light and heat resources waiting for development. What lies behind this is undoubtedly a huge market.
According to Ma Shenghong, a researcher at the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who has long been engaged in research on light and heat, by 2015, the scale of China's CSP will reach 400 to 500 MW. After 2015, the annual installed capacity of CSP will reach 300-500 MW.
Under the influence of various positive news, China has already looked forward to the development prospect of CSP.
“This (franchise bidding) will not only awaken the CSP industry, but will also awaken the entire thermal power industry chain.†Wang Zhifeng, a researcher at the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, sighed, including the power companies, equipment manufacturers, banks, and investment companies. Businessmen are awakening, "There are too many consultations (photothermal power), and I have to receive several appointments a day."