SolarPACES

An interview with Lauri Myllyvirta, co-founder and lead analyst of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, an independent research organization headquartered in Finland with staff across Europe and Asia, about China’s 15th Five-Year Plan. SK: I was surprised that in this 15th Five-Year Plan, concentrated solar thermal was sort of singled out, ‘to actively promote’ it in Chapter Seven – Building a Modern Infrastructure System, Section 2.

Qingdao, China — July 2, 2026 — SEPCOIII has commissioned a new flexible assembly line for high-precision wind-resistant heliostats at its Hongfeng Equipment subsidiary, adding standardized, large-scale heliostat manufacturing capacity. According to SEPCOIII’s technical report on the line, the core advances are in ultra-high wind resistance, high-precision calibration, and flexible compatibility across multiple heliostat specifications, enabling efficient mass production.

[Ed: This plant incorporates multiple innovations, not only that outside China, Fresnel projects have never been built at this scale, and that even within China, this is only the second ever built at 100MW following China General Nuclear’s 100MW Fresnel in Gansu province, online in 2024.] Source:CSTA On July 7, the nation’s largest “Linear Fresnel” concentrated solar power (CSP) integrated energy demonstration project — CTGR Hami 1 million kW “CSP + PV” project — successfully entered the...

Steel production accounts for roughly 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and nearly 70% of that comes from coal-fired blast furnaces; the dominant way the world has made iron for centuries. The Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) could decarbonize steelmaking because it can be powered by renewable electricity. It requires very pure sponge iron. Porous sponge iron is very pure metallic iron with voids where oxygen and impurities have been extracted, so it melts easily and makes stronger steel.

Abstract: As solar tower systems continue to develop towards larger scales, it is necessary to configure dual-tower and triple-tower fields with higher heat collection capacities. This paper designs and optimizes the performance of dual-tower and triple-tower heliostat fields. Two field arrangement strategies are employed to alter the distance between towers and results show that the heliostat field efficiency is the highest when two subfields are in a state of approximate tangency.

[Ed: This 100 MW CSP Tower project at Jixi, Baicheng is one of two 100 MW Tower CSP plants to be connected to one of China’s Ultra High Voltage (UHV) DC lines, the Lugu line, for extremely long-distance transmission of renewable energy. The 1.4GW New Energy park at Jixi Base will deliver 1.4 GW on the Lugu transmission line, including 800MW of wind power, 400MW of PV, and 200MW of CSP.

Here's what dispatchable solar looks like. This gigantic solar thermal energy storage tank holds enough stored sunlight to generate 1,100 MWh/day from stored solar power. The cheapest way to store solar energy over many hours, such as the five to seven hour evening...

The 350MW solar project at Delingha solar park in Qinghai by CGN will combine 3 Towers with Trough CSP [Ed: Till now, Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) using parabolic Trough technology has been limited in efficiency by the temperature limit of the heat transfer oil to around 400°C. Tower CSP with molten salts can achieve 565°C without degradation, for greater efficiency.

Abstract: Integrating renewable energy is critical for maintaining grid stability while striving towards global climate goals. Concentrating solar power tower plants offer a promising solution but their competitiveness is currently hindered by high operational costs, limited data availability and slow adoption of emerging technologies.

Abstract: Solid solar absorption/storage material (SSAM) is the crucial component for next generation concentrating solar power (CSP) system, which could promote global carbon neutrality. However, the comprehensive absorption/storage performance of SSAM at low cost has not been realized, thereby hindering its practical application.