Spanish Energy Giant Abengoa Still Super-Active in Concentrated Solar Power

I had a terrific discussion with a spokesperson for Abengoa at the Solar Power International show yesterday, from which I walked away quite pleased to learn that CSP (aka solar thermal) is still very much alive and kicking.  Abengoa’s approach is a proprietary glass parabolic trough focusing on a tube filled with molten salt.  This eliminates the losses associated with transferring heat from another working fluid to molten salt (for energy storage) in a series of heat exchangers.  The levelized cost of energy is $0.12 – $0.15 per KWh, almost three times that of PV, but it’s very competitive in islanded applications where the grid cannot be used to absorb off-peak power.

Keep up the good work, guys.