COLORADO POLITICS — The National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden has received $8 million in federal grants for research to bolster “concentrating solar power,” a renewable energy technology that has been flagging as wind and photovoltaic solar power grow.
The NREL grants are part of $72 million awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office.
Concentrating (or concentrated) solar power installations (CSP) array hundreds of mirrors or lenses around a tall tower filled with molten salt. The sun’s rays are focused on the tower, heating the salt solution. The heat can be stored and released as needed, making CSP able to generate electricity at night or when the sun isn’t shinning.
However the cost of CSP has not fallen as quickly as it has for photovoltaics or wind. While utility-scale solar is $46 to $53 a megawatt-hour (MWh) to build and operate a plant and a wind farm is $30 to $60 a MWh, a CSP plant is $98 to $181 a MWh, according to financial consult Lazard.
Read more at Colorado Politics: https://bit.ly/2kcvpQg
