Middle East Project Boosts Emerging Concentrated Solar Thermal Industry

Paul Fleckney blogging for Beyond Zero Emissions.


Last week, a consortium of leading energy companies announced it would build the Middle East’s largest concentrating solar thermal (CST) plant. Spanish construction giant Abengoa, French oil group Total, and domestic renewable energy company MASDAR will partner to deliver the Shams 1 project in the desert outside Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Shams (Arabic for sun) 1 will provide 100-125 MW of solar capacity by 2012 and contribute towards Abu Dhabi’s target of 7% renewable energy by 2020. The plant will house over 750 parabolic trough collectors and generate enough electricity to power 62,000 homes. The scale of Shams 1 is globally significant and is exceeded only by Solar Reserve’s planned 150MW ‘utility-scale’ solar power installation in California.

With the UAE deciding to join established players Spain and USA in developing commercial scale CST technology, it serves to further demonstrate the feasibility of solar power as a baseload energy source. Moreover, the fact that one of the world’s largest petrochemical companies is building a renewable energy plant in an oil-rich nation is indicative of a growing global awareness for the critical role that CST and other renewable energy resources play in securing our future energy needs. Whatever the reason, this latest development will ‘up the ante’ for other countries with excellent solar reserves.

Australia, with its unique geography and climate, enjoys several comparative advantages over other countries when it comes to deploying CST technology. Its solar resource is equal to the world’s best with low seasonal fluctuation. The sheer size of the Australian continent allows for significant diversity of sites and, unlike areas such as the Middle East, the frequency of dust clouds and sandstorms (which reduce the efficiency of parabolic collectors) is low.

For these reasons, Beyond Zero Emissions has selected CST as a key technology for transforming Australia’s energy sector to 100% renewables by 2020. CST can provide 60% of Australia’s stationary energy supply by the end of the decade, amounting to a total of 3500MW of solar capacity to be progressively deployed over 12 sites. The deployment of commercially proven CST technologies will create up to 65,000 jobs in construction with a further 28,000 workers employed in ongoing operation and maintenance.

For further details, look out for the forthcoming Zero Carbon Australia 2020 - Stationary Energy report to be released on June 22, 2010.