Review of Solar Thermal Technology

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 91 (2018) 987–1018
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser
A comprehensive review of state-of-the-art concentrating solar power (CSP) T

technologies: Current status and research trends
⁎ ⁎
Md Tasbirul Islama, , Nazmul Hudaa, , A.B. Abdullahb, R. Saidurc,d
a
School of Engineering, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
b
School of Mechanical Engineering, University Science Malaysia (USM), Engineering Campus, 14300 Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia
c
Research Centre for Nano-Materials and Energy Technology (RCNMET), School of Science and Technology, Sunway University, No. 5, Jalan Universiti, Bandar Sunway,
Petaling Jaya 47500, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
d
American University of Ras Al Khaimah, Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates
A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Concentrating solar power (CSP) has received significant attention among researchers, power-producing com-
Concentrating solar power (CSP) panies and state policymakers for its bulk electricity generation capability, overcoming the intermittency of solar
Concentrated solar power resources. The parabolic trough collector (PTC) and solar power tower (SPT) are the two dominant CSP systems
Solar thermal power plant that are either operational or in the construction stage. The USA and Spain are global leaders in CSP electricity
Solar thermal electricity
generation, whereas developing countries such as China and India are emerging by aggressive investment. Each
Renewable energy
Direct steam generation
year, hundreds of articles have been published on CSP. However, there is a need to observe the overall research
development of this field which is missing in the current body of literature. To bridge this gap, this study 1)
provides a most up-to-date overview of the CSP technologies implemented across the globe, 2) reviews pre-
viously published review articles on this issue to highlight major findings and 3) analyzes future research trends
in the CSP research. Text mining approach is utilized to analyze and visualize the scientific landscape of the
research. Thermal energy storage, solar collector and policy-level analysis are found as core topics of discussion
in the previous studies. With a holistic analysis, it is found that direct steam generation (DSG) is a promising
innovation which is reviewed in this study. This paper provides a comprehensive outlook on the CSP technol-
ogies and its research which offers practical help to the future researchers who start to research on this topic.
1. Introduction Moreover, fossil-fuel energy sources are responsible for an increasing

pace of climate change, and developing countries especially should seek
Global energy and electricity consumption is increasing rapidly due alternative energy sources for their respective power sectors to mitigate
to the growth in population, industrialization, and urbanization. As carbon emissions in the near future [9].
major conventional energy sources are depleting in nature and emit To eradicate such catastrophic scenario, global renewable-energy
harmful emissions, the world is experiencing severe challenges in pro- initiatives show that, with the existing development of the renewable-
viding a clean and sustainable energy supply to mass populations [1,2]. energy infrastructure, renewables will contribute to an overall CO2
Compared to global population growth, energy consumption is growing reduction of 30% by 2050, compared to the year 2012 [11]. From such
much faster and, within the next 15–20 years’ time, electricity con- perspectives, the development, adoption, and dissemination of low-
sumption will double [3,4]. The energy-consumption pattern of various carbon technologies, particularly of renewable-energy-harvesting
energy sources, both conventional and renewable, will play the most technologies, has become the highest priority, to satisfy the energy
important role in sustainable development, as this pattern is one of the requirement of society and contribute to a greater CO2 reduction effort
critical indicators of resource use and environmental impact [5,6]. At [12].
present, 80% of the global primary energy supply comes from fossil Due to the features of being green, low-cost and renewable, solar
fuels (e.g. coal, liquid petroleum and natural gas), which are now being energy is widely recognized as one of the most competitive alternatives
considered a depleting energy source, and are responsible for emitting among all the renewables [13]. Using the energy source, concentrating
major greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions such as CO2 [1,7,8]. Fig. 1 solar power (CSP) or solar thermal electricity (STE) is a technology that
shows global energy-related CO2 emissions from different fuel types. is capable of producing utility-scale electricity, offering firm capacity
⁎
Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: tasbirul.islam@gmail.com, md-tasbirul.islam@hdr.mq.edu.au (M.T. Islam), nazmul.huda@mq.edu.au (N. Huda).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2018.04.097
Received 22 November 2017; Received in revised form 11 April 2018; Accepted 15 April 2018
1364-0321/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M.T. Islam et al. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 91 (2018) 987–1018
Abbreviation TES thermal energy storage

TIR total internal reflection
CSP concentrating solar power USC ultra super critical
CCS carbon capture and storage
CF capacity factor Symbol
DNI direct normal irradiance
DSG direct steam generation CO2 carbon dioxide
EU European Union °C degrees celsius
EPCMs encapsulated phase change materials GW gigawatt
FiT feed-in tariff kW h kilowatt hour
GHGs greenhouse gases kW h/m2/yr kilowatt hour per square meter per year
HRSG heat recovery steam generator kWe kilowatt hours of electricity
HTF heat transfer fluid kW h/m2/day kilowatt hours per square meter per day
LOCE levelized cost of electricity/ levelized cost of energy kW h/m2 kilowatt hours per square meter
LSS large-scale solar kg/TJ kilograms per terajoule
LFR linear Fresnel reflectors Mtoe million tonnes of oil equivalent
LHSS latent heat storage system MW megawatt
MENA Middle East and North Africa m2 square meter
MH metal hydride m meter
NEM net energy metering mm millimeter
O&M operational and maintenance MW h/m2/yr megawatt hours per square meter per year
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and MW h/yr megawatt hours per year
Development m2/kW square meters per kilowatt
PV solar photovoltaic MWe megawatts of electricity
PTC parabolic trough collectors m3/MW h cubic meters per megawatt hour
PCM phase change material m2/MW h/year square meters per megawatt hour per year
RETs renewable energy technologies MJ/m2/day megajoules per square meter per day
RE renewable energy MJ/m2 megajoules per square meter
RSER renewable and sustainable energy reviews NOx nitrogen oxide
STE solar thermal electricity SO2 sulphur dioxide
SPD solar parabolic dishes TW h terawatt hours
SPT solar power tower US$ United States dollar
SMS simultaneous multiple surface µm micrometer
and dispatchable power on demand by integrating thermal energy [17]. Fig. 2 shows the potential of the annual CO2 reduction and the
storage or in hybrid operation [14]. Considering the high energy saving number of jobs will be created under market projections of the current
and high energy efficiency, CSP plants are predicted to produce a global policy, and moderate and aggressive development scenarios, in the CSP
electricity contribution of 7% by the year 2030 and 25% by the year sector. According to the Solar thermal electricity Global outlook 2016
2050 [15]. It is envisioned that, with high levels of energy efficiency [14], 5% and 12% of the global electricity demand will be meet in the
and advanced industry development, CSP could meet up 6% of the moderate scenario and the advanced scenario, respectively, by the year
world's power demand by 2030 and 12% by 2050 [16]. Apart from the 2050.
production of electricity, CSP also has tremendous potential in em- Potential locations for CSP plants around the world are generally
ployment generation and reducing CO2 emissions on a global scale being identified by using the global distribution of Direct Normal
Irradiance (DNI) [18]. North Africa, the Middle East, the Mediterra-
nean, and vast areas in the United States including California, Arizona,
Nevada, New Mexico are known as the “Sun Belt” where greater solar
radiation is available from the sun. Geographically, the Belt is suitable
for CSP plants, as there are massive land areas with extraordinary solar
irradiation, well suited to install a large number of solar-energy har-
vesting systems. By 2020, CSP is expected to be an economically
competitive source of bulk power generation for peak and intermediate
loads, and by 2025–2030 for base-load power [19,20]. Commercially
viable CSP plants should maintain a DNI of at least 2000–2800 kW h/
m2/yr. Present commercial CSP plants are being developed based on
this level of irradiance [18]. However, it is also argued that a DNI
value > 1800 kW h/m2/yr is suitable for CSP plant development [21].
In the period 1984–1991, the first commercial CSP plant was con-
structed in the Mojave Desert, California, the USA by Luz International
Ltd. However, due to a drop in the oil price at that time, the regulatory
initiatives that supported the progress of CSP collapsed. In 2006, CSP
Fig. 1. Global energy-related CO2 emissions [10]. plant development initiatives were pursued in Spain and in the United
988
Fig. 2. (a) Projected number of employment and (b) CO2 savings under different policy approaches from 2015 to 2050 [14].
States. The policy in regard to solar power generation was amended in regions, and will reach 342 GW by 2050; this expected power genera-
those countries, and feed-in tariffs were introduced in Spain [20]. As of tion will be coming from the Middle East (55%) and Northern Africa
March 2014, the California Energy Commission approved licenses for (30%), and the remaining 15% will be from European countries, as-
five CSP plants with a total installed capacity of 2284 MW [22]. In the suming a modest growth of CSP technology [15]. As of 2016, in Spain,
United States, it has been assessed that CSP plants with a total capacity the total installed capacity of the operational CSP plants is 2304 MW
of 118 GW could be installed by 2030, and by 2050 the capacity could [25], outperforming the estimate in the Spanish Renewable Energy Plan
be increased further to 1504 GW [23]. As of 2015, the total installed made for the time frame of 2005–2010 [15].
capacity of CSP plants in Europe reached 5 GW, from 0.5 GW in the year In the coming decades, it is expected that CSP will show prospects of
2006 [14]. exporting electricity generated from the desert regions of the Middle
With the present development policy on CSP technology, six East and North Africa (MENA) to Europe. Moreover, it is found that the
European Union (EU) countries, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal electricity demand of all Europe can be met by harvesting from only
and Spain, envision producing electricity of 20 TW h by the year 2020 0.4% of the Sahara desert. Indeed, by using only 2% of the earth's total
[24]. By 2030, a total of 83 GW could be installed in the sunniest land surface, the global electricity demand can be entirely fulfilled [7].
By 2020, the annual electricity production from CSP plants is expected
to reach 85 TW h, which will meet 2% of Europe's electricity produc-
tion, and by 2030 the installed capacity will double, reaching 60 GW,
and producing 70 TW h of electricity per annum [26]. Fig. 3 shows the
growth of global CSP capacity.
Universities and major research institutions are producing high-
quality research output that is contributing to CSP technology devel-
opment and its dissemination all over the world. With a search term
“concentrating solar power” in the SCOPUS database, a total of 15,998
patent documents was found. Fig. 4 shows the yearly number of patents
in between 1981 and 2017 on CSP, which depicts the tremendous
progress in the technology.
With the pace of patent documents, publications on CSP have grown
dramatically over recent years. Previous review articles analyzed in-
dividual research themes independently or focused on specific issues.
However, an overall perspective in CSP research needs to be developed.
Therefore, the purpose of this review is to provide a holistic overview
on CSP by (1) analyzing the present global status of CSP technology
implementation, (2) identifying major research findings of previous
Fig. 3. Global CSP capacity growth [27].
review articles, (3) discovering the historical development and recent
989
Fig. 4. Number of CSP technology-related patents.
Fig. 5. Various CSP technologies along with their installed ratios [30].
trends on CSP research. The rest of the paper is organized in the fol- 2. Overview of CSP technology
lowing order: after this introduction, Section 2 gives an overview of the
CSP technologies, Section 3 presents the status of global CSP projects, In CSP power plants, electrical energy is generated by concentrating
Section 4 reviews previous review articles on CSP, Section 5 presents a solar radiation. Generally, CSP plants consist of several components
text-mining based bibliometric analysis, Section 6 presents major re- such as solar concentrators, receiver, steam turbine and electrical
search findings of the analysis, and finally, Section 7 ends with con- generator. Until today, four different kinds of CSP power generation
clusion and future work. plants are found; those are 1) solar parabolic dishes (SPD), 2) parabolic
990
Fig. 6. Main parts of a CSP plant and their components [34].
trough collectors (PTC), 3) solar power tower (SPT), and 4) linear electric conversion efficiencies of all the solar technologies [39]. The
Fresnel reflectors (LFR) [3,28,29]. Fig. 5 shows the various CSP tech- reason such behind efficiency is that the curved mirrors used in the
nologies and their installed ratios in the technology mix, where the PTC system always point directly to the sun, whereas other technologies
represents the highest establishment, globally. such as the PTC and SPT suffer from cosine losses (the projected area
Depending upon their current power generation capacity, the plants will experience a reduction) [7,45,46]. SPD has 50–100% higher solar-
are further classified into operational, under construction and under to-electric efficiencies than SPTs and PTCs, respectively, on an
development. The CSP power generation systems use concentrators to equivalent basis of the systems [47]. Unlike other CSP technologies, one
focus sunlight onto a receiver that carries a working fluid which is of the unique advantages of the SPD is that the system does not need
heated up to a high temperature, and this heated fluid goes to a con- completely level ground and is readily applicable in remote and small
ventional steam turbine that is attached to a generator, thus electricity isolated grids [48]. Fig. 7 shows a set of four 25 kWe units that can be
is produced [3,31]. Thermal energy storage (i.e. heat stored in a tank) is used for a typical village power system. To provide a more reliable
an integrated part of a CSP plant, where stored heat can be used for source of power, SPD systems can also be combined with a fossil-fuel
continuous operation of the CSP plant during the night, and on cloudy driven power plant.
days. However, storage capabilities might not be present in all CSP According to Solar Power And Chemical Energy Systems
plants. For instance, only 50 plants (around 40% of all plants) have the (SolarPACES) [25] two parabolic-dish CSP plants have been con-
storage capacity in Spain [32]. In addition, other conventional fuels structed so far, one being operational and the other having stopped its
such as gas/oil are used as supplementary sources of energy [3,12,33]. electricity production. At present, the only commercial and operational
Fig. 6 shows the major parts of a CSP plant. Table 1 details the major SPD plant is at the Tooele Army Depot which is located at Tooele, Utah
characteristics of all CSP technologies. in the United States. The plant has a capacity of 1.5 MW and consists of
429 solar dishes with a Stirling engine.
2.1. Solar parabolic-dish (SPD) system The working fluid of the plant is helium with a closed-loop cooling
system. The primary target of the plant is to supply 30% of the elec-
In the SPD-CSP system, a parabolic point-focus concentrator in the tricity requirements of the Tooele US Army facility. On the other hand,
form of a dish is used in a system that reflects solar radiation onto a the currently non-operational parabolic-dish plant, the Maricopa Solar
receiver at the focal point. The concentrators are placed in an assembly Project (Maricopa), had a capacity of 1.5 MW and is located at Peoria,
with a two-axis tracking system that follows the sun. At the focal point, Arizona, United States. The technical characteristics of both plants are
for efficient power conversion, a Stirling/Brayton engine is placed with given in Table 2.
an electrical generator to utilize the concentrated heat on the receiver
[39]. With a concentration ratio of approximately 2000 at the focal 2.2. Parabolic-trough collector (PTC)
point of the SPDes, the temperature and pressure of the working fluid
generally reaches around 700–750 °C and 200 bar, respectively In the PTC-CSP system, large mirrors shaped like a giant U are used
[7,12,33,40–42]. Generally, the diameter of the SPDes varies from 5 to to reflect the solar radiation on to a receiver. The collector field com-
10 m and the surface area is 40–120 m2. The shiny surface of the SPD is prises several hundred troughs that are placed in parallel rows aligned
constructed of silver or aluminum which is coated on glass or plastic. on a north-south axis. This configuration enables the single-axis troughs
However, higher performance can be attained when glass is used with a to track the sun from east to west throughout the day, ensuring that the
surface of silver having a thickness of 1 µm. In addition, to improve the solar radiation is continuously focused on the receiver pipes [25]. When
reflection of the surface, a certain percentage of iron is used in the glass. the sun's heat is reflected off the mirror, the curved shapes send most of
In such a combination, the solar reflectance can reach 90–94%. A single that reflected heat on to a receiver. The receiver or absorption tube is
parabolic-dish CSP system can have a power generation capacity colored in order to achieve maximum absorption of the solar irradiation
varying from 0.01 to 0.5 MW [43,44]. and a reduction in heat losses. The receiver tube is filled with the fluid;
To operate a Stirling engine, the solar energy is collected in the form it could be oil, molten salt, or something that holds the heat well.
of heat that flows from a hot source to a cold sink. The output of the Different percentages of sodium nitrate, potassium, potassium nitrate
Stirling cycle is then used to run the generator, thus electrical power is are used for the molten salt. A high absorption coefficient of the ab-
generated. The efficiency of the SPD system with Stirling engine varies sorption tube and its position in the focal point of the trough are the
between 25% and 30% [40,43,44], which is one of the highest solar-to- two important issues that need to be ensured for efficient heating of the
991
Table 1
M.T. Islam et al.
Characteristics of CSP technologies [3,7,21,34–37].

PTC LFR SPT SPD
Capacity (MWe) 10–200 10–200 10–150 0.01–0.4

Concentration ratio 25–100 70–80 300–1000 1000–3000
Solar efficiency max. 20% (expected) 21% (demonstrated) 20% (demonstrated) 35% (expected) 29% (demonstrated)
Annual solar-to-electric efficiency 15% 8–10% 20–35% (concepts) 20–35%
Optical efficiency Medium Low Medium High
Collector concentration 70–80 suns > 60 suns (depends on secondary reflector) > 1000 suns > 1300 suns
Receiver/absorber Absorber attached to collector, moves with collector, Fixed absorber, no evacuation, secondary reflector External surface or cavity receiver, Absorber attached to collector,
complex design fixed moves with collector
Area requirement (m²/MWh) 4–6 6–8 8–12 30–40
Thermal efficiency (%) 30–40 – 30–40 30–40
Plant peak efficiency (%) 14–20 ∼ 18 23–35 ∼ 30
Capital cost (US$/kW) 3972 – 4000+ 12,578
3770 Solar field < $75/m2; receiver and HTF(HTF) < $150/kW; power block < $1200/kW; thermal energy storage (TES) < $15/kW hb
Capital cost (US$/m2) 424 234 476 –
Operation and maintenance cost (US 0.012 − 0.02 low 0.034 0.21
$/kW h)
Basic plant cost (US$/W) 3.22 – 3.62 2.65
Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE)a 0.26–0.37 (no TES) and 0.22–0.34 (with TES) 0.17–0.37 (6 h TES) 0.2–0.29 (6–7.5 h TES) and 0.17–0.24 –
(USD/kW h) (12–15 h TES)
0.06b
Land use (m2/MW h/year) 6–8 4–6 8–12 8–12
Specific power (W/m2) 300 – 300 200
Site solar characteristics/solar Generally sites with annual sum of DNI larger than 1800 kWh/m2
992
radiation required
Land requirement Large Medium Medium Small
Typical shape of solar plant Rectangular Rectangular Sector of a circle/rectangular Rectangular
Water requirement (m3/MW h) 3 (wet cooling), 0.3 (dry cooling) and 0.4–1.7 (hybrid) 3 (wet cooling) and 0.2 (dry cooling) 2–3 (wet cooling), 0.25 (dry cooling) 0.05–0.1 (mirror washing)
and 0.3–1 (hybrid)
Water cooling (L/MW h) 3 000 or dry 3 000 or dry 2 000 or dry –
Suitability for air cooling Low to good Low Good Best
Storage with molten salt Commercially available Possible, but not proven Commercially available Possible, but not proven
Operating temperature of solar field 290–550 250–390, possible up to 560° C 250–650 800
(°C)
Annual CF (%) 25–28 (no TES), 29–43 (7 h TES) 22–24 55 (10 h TES) 25–28
Grid stability Medium to high (TES or hybridization) Medium (back-up firing possible) High (large TES) Low
Power block cycle and fluid Superheated steam Rankine, steam @380 °C/100 bar Saturated steam Rankine (steam @ 270 °C/55 bar), Superheated steam Rankine, steam @ Stirling/Brayton
conditions superheated steam Rankine (steam @ 380 °C/50 bar) 540 °C/100–160 bar
Supercritical steam Rankine, supercritical CO2 Brayton cycle (600 °C/200 bar), air Brayton cycle
Possible backup/hybrid mode Yes Yes Yes Yes, but in limited cases
Storage possibility Yes, but not yet with direct steam generation (DSG) Yes, but not yet with DSG Depends on plant configuration Depends on plant configuration
Storage system indirect 2-tank molten salt at 380 °C (ΔT = 100 °C) or Short-term pressurized steam storage (< 10 min) Direct 2-tank molten salt at 550 °C (ΔT No storage, chemical storage under
Direct 2-tank molten salt at 550 °C (ΔT = 300 °C) = 300 °C) development
14 h TESb
(continued on next page)
SunShot Initiative is launched in 2011 by the United States Department of Energy that targets levelized cost of CSP-generated electricity to be less than USD 0.06/kW h with cost of thermal storage less than USD 15/
Through mass production
Stirling Energy Systems
Air, hydrogen, helium
Demonstration
Not applicable
Medium
SPD
Yes
Abengoa, eSolar, Sener, BrightSource,
Water/steam, molten salt, air
Torresol, Solarreserve
Fig. 7. Parabolic dish for village power application [39].

(demonstration)
540/100 to 160
Very significant
working fluid. Depending on the concentration ratio, solar intensity,

Medium
Mature
working fluid flow rate and other parameters, the temperature of the
SPT
Yes
working fluid can reach 400 °C [52]. As the solar energy is concentrated
70–100 times in the system, the operating temperature reaches
350–550 °C. The solar-to-electric efficiency is 15% for the system [53].
If a parabolic-trough system is integrated with a steam-turbine power
plant then it is called direct steam generation technology. The super-hot
liquid heats water through a heat exchanger, the water turns into
steam, that steam is used to rotate a turbine, and from there it works
like a conventional power plant where a steam turbine turns the gen-
erator and electricity is produced. Once the fluid transfers its heat to
water it is recycled and used again in the process, and the steam is also
cooled, condensed and recycled again to repeat the process [20,54].
Austra, MAN Ferrostaal
One of the big advantages of the trough system is that the heated fluid
Net present value of the unit cost of electricity over the lifetime of a generating asset is known as LCOE.
can be stored and used later to generate electricity when sunlight is

Demonstration
Water/steam
absent. Among the various solar harvesting technologies, this system

Significant
ensures the best land use [3,7,12,40–43,55]. Some parabolic-trough

Molten salt with lower melting points, air, steam, supercritical CO2b
Medium
260/50
plants use fossil fuel to supplement energy production during low solar
LFR
No
radiation, and often the trough system can be integrated with conven-
tional natural-gas-fired or coal-fired plants [25]. Compared to other
Sener, Solar Millennium, Abengoa, ACS-Cobra, Acciona,
CSP technologies, the parabolic-trough system is more advanced [43].

Fig. 8 shows some of the PTC plants in the world.
The parabolic-trough system is the most widely used CSP tech-
Synthetic oil, water/steam (DSG), molten salt
nology. The first parabolic-trough system was developed in 1912 in

Cairo, Egypt [7]. At present, globally, there are 77 operational para-
(demonstration), air (demonstration)
bolic-trough power plants and most of them are located in Spain and
kW ht and exergetic efficiency greater than 95% by the year 2020 [38].
the United States. Two plants are located in Morocco, 2 in Italy, 2 in

South Africa, 1 in Canada, 3 plants in India, 1 in Algeria, 1 in Egypt, 1 in
the United Arab Emirates and 1 plant in Thailand. Table 3 shows
technical characteristics of the plants.
In Spain, there are 39 parabolic-trough power plants, where the net
380 to 540/100
turbine capacity varies from 22.5 MW to 50 MW. The first parabolic-

Most proven
trough system was installed in 2008 near Granada, named Andasol-1

Limited
(AS-1) and with a capacity of 49.9 MW. The solar resource per year for
Solel
PTC
Low
the plant was estimated to be 2136 kW h/m2. The planned electricity

No
generation is 158,000 MW h/year [25]. Helios I and Helios II are the

two largest parabolic-trough plants in Spain, representing the largest
land area used, 2,600,000 m2 each. The total installed capacity of the
Technology development risk
operational parabolic-trough plants in Spain reached 1871.9 MW up

Steam conditions (°C/bar)
until 2016. Table 4 summarizes the details of PTC plants in Spain.

Outlook for improvement
On the other hand, in the United States, until 2016, the total in-
Technology providers
Development status
Heat Transfer fluid
stalled capacity of parabolic-trough CSP plants reached a capacity of

Table 1 (continued)
1255.8 MW. The Genesis Solar Energy Project, Mojave Solar Project and
Solana Generating Station are three CSP plants that have 250 MW of
Solar fuels
capacity, each representing the highest capacity using the technology in

the world. Solar Electric Generating Station I (SEGS I), established in
1984 with a capacity of 13.8 MW, is the first PTC CSP plant in the
b
a
993
Table 2
Technical characteristics of parabolic-dish CSP plants [25,49].
Name Maricopa solar project (Maricopa) Tooele army depot
Image source [50] Image source [51]

Start year 2010 2013
Location Peoria, Arizona, United States Tooele, Utah, United States
Latitude/longitude 33°33′ 31.0″ North, 112°13′ 7.0″ West 40°30′ 4.0″ North, 112°22′ 25.0″ West
(location)
Capacity 1.5 MW 1.5 MW
Land area 15 acres 17 acres
# of dishes 60 429
Output type Stirling Stirling
Dish Aperture Area – 35 m2
Cooling Method Does not use water for electricity generation or cooling cycles. Minimal Closed-loop cooling system
Description water is used for site operations and washing its mirrors.
Heat-Transfer Fluid Type Hydrogen Helium
Annual Solar-to- 26% –
Electricity Efficiency
(Gross)
Storage Type None None
Project type Demonstration Commercial
Status Currently Non-Operational Operational
United States. Installed in the year 2013, the Solana Generating Station centrally located tower [58]. The materials for the receiver are gen-
was the most expensive project so far undertaken in the United States erally ceramics or metals that are stable at relatively elevated tem-
based on this technology, with a cost of US$ 2 billion. The planned peratures. The average solar flux impinging on the receiver varies from
electricity generation is estimated to be 944,000 MW h/year. For the 200 kW/m2 to 1000 kW/m2, providing an opportunity to achieve a high
Saguaro power plant, the net specific land area, at 64.7497 m2/kW, is working temperature [46]. In the receiver the temperature of the
the highest among all the present operational plants in the United working fluid becomes high enough to produce steam, which eventually
States. Table 5 shows some characteristics of the parabolic-trough spins a conventional turbine to generate electricity. Water/steam,
plants in the United States. Using the RETscreen International's clean- molten salt, liquid sodium or air can be utilized as the working fluid in
energy project analysis software, it is estimated that the cities where the the system for large plants with capacity of 100–200 MW [59,60]. In
CSP plants are located have had an average annual daily solar irra- the 1980s and 1990s, the United States Department of Energy Projects
diance of 5.13–4.63 kW h/m2/day for Spain and 4.8–5.78 kW h/m2/day in California demonstrated that a SPT could collect and store heat, to
for the United States. At present, there are 4 parabolic-trough plants generate utility-scale electricity all day round, 24 h a day. Today SPTs
(50 MW, 100 MW, 25 MW and 100 MW) being constructed in India, 2 continue to help build a clean energy economy. In 2009, the Sierra Sun
(100 MW and 100 MW) plants in South Africa, 1 (43 MW) in Saudi Tower, a modular two-tower system in the Mojave Desert, powered
Arabia, 1 (200 MW) in Morocco, and 1 (12 MW) in Mexico. China is more than 5000 homes, and in 2010 construction began of the 392 MW
investing heavily in this technology and 6 parabolic-trough plants are three-tower system of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System
now under development, with a capacity of 414 MW. Under the present located in California, USA. In this plant there are about 175,000 mir-
development plan, Chile is going to construct the largest parabolic- rors. This California plant has created more than 1000 jobs and powers
trough plant, at Maria Elena in the Antofagasta region, with a capacity more than 350,000 homes [61]. Thousands of mirrors called heliostats
of 360 MW. The estimated cost of the project will be 2610 million US$. reflect sunlight onto a receiver on top of a tower. Fig. 9 shows the
Some other countries such as Israel, South Africa and Kuwait are also 10 MW PS-10 SPT CSP plant located at Seville, Spain. The heliostats are
planning to build parabolic-trough plants with capacities ranging from the major capital investment in a power-tower CSP plant [35]. These
50 MW to 110 MW. computer-controlled mirrors move to maintain a focus from dawn to
dusk. In the Sierra Sun Tower plant water is used as the working fluid,
2.3. Solar power-tower (SPT)/central receiver whereas at present molten salt nitrate is widely used at power plants in
the United States, as the fluid is not flammable, is non-toxic, and has
SPTs are the CSP power generation system that employ large flat better heat storage capacity than water. In the Jülich Solar Tower plant
mirrors to reflect sunlight on to a solar receiver at the top of the in Germany, the working fluid used in the plant is air.
994
Fig. 8. (a) 354 MW solar energy generating system (SEGS), USA [56], (b) 150 MW Andasol solar power plant, Spain [56], (c) 5 MW Thai solar energy 1, Thailand
[57].
In a steam SPT, water is impelled to the receiver where concentrated power plant. Unlike other CSP plants, power-tower plants require a
solar radiation heats the water to over 537 °C. A fraction of the super- considerable water supply and the largest land area. The efficiency of
hot steam is stored (in a heat storage tank) while the majority of the the plant varies, depending on number of criteria such as the optical
steam is sent to the power block for later use, as with a parabolic-trough characteristics of the heliostats, the accuracy of the mirror's tracking
system. After that, high-pressure steam spins the turbine to produce system and the cleanliness of the mirror. SPTs must be large in size to be
electricity. If cloud covers the sunlight, the steam that was stored pre- economically viable and profitable. Generally, economic viability and
viously in the tank is used to produce electricity for up to an hour. On profitability can be achieved when the plant is capable of producing
the other hand, in a SPT where molten salt is used as the working fluid, power of 50–100 MW [3,65].
relatively cold molten salt at 290 °C is pumped to the receiver where it To reduce the financial risk and to lower the cost of electricity
is heated up to 565 °C, and then flows to the storage tank of hot molten production, often power-tower CSP plants (i.e. commercial plants with
salt. The hot salt then flows through a heat exchanger from where heat a capacity of > 30 MW) are advised to hybridize with natural gas
is transferred to water, producing steam that spins a conventional combined-cycle, coal-fired or oil-fired Rankine plants [65,66]. Due to
Rankine-cycle turbine/generator system. The exhausted steam derived low cost of solar PV, many of the investors in CSP technology were
from the turbine is condensed and afterwards the condensate is pumped moving towards the technology, however, there is a potential for in-
into the heat exchanger system. Here the molten salt that has been tegrating a SPT CSP with solar PV (Fig. 11).
cooled again is heated by the solar receiver and the process repeats At present, the total operational gross installed capacity of SPT-CSP
itself continuously [3,7,12,41,42,62–64]. Finally, the molten salt then plants has reached 618.42 MW worldwide and is expanding rapidly. In
flows back to the cold storage tank. The stored hot salt can produce 2007, the first commercial power-tower plant was established in Spain,
steam and generate electricity efficiently for hours. For continuous named Planta Solar 10, with a capacity of 11.02 MW. The total land
output from a turbine, storage tanks can be designed in a way that can area of the plant is 55 ha and planned electricity generation is assessed
supply sufficient heat as an energy source for up to 13 h [65]. Today as 23,400 MW h/year. As mentioned earlier, the largest plant using
innovation continues to drive down costs and boost efficiency so that a such technology was established in 2014 and it is located in the United
SPT can supply utility-scale power (ranging from 30 to 400 MWe) States, named the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, with a
providing dependable clean electricity to homes, businesses and com- gross turbine capacity of 392 MW. This commercial plant spreads over
munities. The annual solar-to-electric efficiency for this type of power one of the largest land areas, of 3500 acres, and electricity generation
plant varies from 20% to 35% [59,60]. Fig. 10 depicts the schematic from the plant is projected as 1,079,232 MW h/year. Among the op-
diagram of the primary flow paths in a molten-salt driven power-tower erational plants, the Greenway CSP Mersin Tower Plant in Turkey and
CSP plant and hybridization scope with a conventional combined-cycle the Dahan Power Plant in China are the two smallest plants, with a
995
M.T. Islam et al.
Table 3
Technical characteristics of the operational parabolic-trough plants worldwide, except Spain and the United States [25].
Sl no. Project Country Net Start year Average daily Solar resource Electricity Location of the Land area Project type Cost Specific land Working/heat Thermal Thermal
turbine solar radiation (kW h/m2/yr) generation climate data (m2) (approximately) area – net transfer fluid storage storage
capacity over a year – (MW h/yr) point (m2/kW) capacity description
(MW) horizontal (h)
(kW h/m2/day)
1 Airlight Morocco 3 2014 5.55 2200 2390 Agadir/ 240,000 Pilot plant - 80 Air at ambient 5 Packed-bed
Energy Ait- Inezgane pressure of rocks
Baha Pilot
Plant
2 ISCC Ain Morocco 20 2010 - - 55,000 - - Commercial - Therminol VP-1 - None
Beni Mathar
3 Archimede Italy 4.72 2010 – 1936 9200 – 80,000 – – 16.95 Molten salts 8 Molten salts
4 ASE Demo Italy – 2013 3.75 1527 275 Perugia 30,000 Demonstration – Molten salt – Molten salt
Plant
5 Bokpoort South 50 2016 – – 230,000 – 1,000,000 Commercial US$ 565 million 20 Dowtherm A 9.30 Molten salts
Africa
6 KaXu Solar South 100 2015 – – 330,000 – – Commercial US$ 860 million Thermal oil 2.50 Molten salts
One Africa
996
7 City of Canada 1.1 2014 4.04 – 1500 Medicine Hat – Demonstration US$ 9 million 0 Xceltherm®SST – None
Medicine Hat Airport
ISCC Project
8 Godawari India 50 2013 – – 118,000 – 1500,000 Commercial 30 Dowtherm A – None
Solar Project
9 Megha Solar India 50 2014 5.34 – 110,000 Anantapur 2,420,000 Commercial Rs 848 Crore 48.40 Xceltherm®MK1 – None
Plant
10 National India 1 2012 – – – – – Demonstration – Therminol VP-1 – None
Solar
Thermal
Power
Facility
11 ISCC Hassi Algeria 20 2011 – – – – 640,000 Commercial Euros 315 32 Thermal oil – None
R'mel million
12 ISCC Egypt 20 2011 5.31 2431 34,000 Cairo H.Q. – Commercial – Therminol VP-1 – None
Kuraymat
13 Shams 1 United 100 2013 – 1934 210,000 – 2,500,000 Commercial US$ 600 million 25 Therminol VP-1 – None
Arab
Emirates
14 Thai Solar Thailand 5 2012 4.88 – 8000 Kanchanaburi 1,100,000 Commercial – 220 Water/Steam – None
Energy 1
(TSE1)
M.T. Islam et al.
Table 4
Details of PTC CSP plants in Spain [25].
Turbine Capacity
(MW)
Project Start year Net Gross Electricity generation Land area Project type Cost Specific land area Working fluid Thermal storage Thermal storage
(MW h/yr) (m2) (million Euro) – net (m2/kW) capacity (h) description
Andasol-1 (AS-1) 2008 49.9 50 158,000 2,000,000 Commercial – 40.08 Thermal Oil 7.5 Molten salts
Andasol-2 (AS-2) 2009 49.9 50 158,000 2,000,000 Commercial 40.08 Dowtherm A 7.5 Molten salt
Andasol-3 (AS-3) 2011 50 50 175,000 2,000,000 – 315 40 Thermal Oil 7.5 Molten salts
Arcosol 50 (Valle 1) 2011 49.9 49.9 175,000 2,300,000 – 270 46.09 Diphenyl/Diphenyl Oxide 7.5 Molten salts
Arenales 2013 50 50 166,000 2,200,000 Commercial – 44 Diphenyl 7 Molten salts
Aste 1A 2012 50 50 170,000 1,800,000 Commercial – 36 Dowtherm A 8 Molten salts
Aste 1B 2012 50 50 170,000 1,800,000 Commercial 36 Dowtherm A 8 Molten salts
Astexol II 2012 50 50 170,000 1,600,000 Commercial – 32 Thermal Oil 8 Molten salts
Borges Termosolar 2012 22.5 25 98,000 960,000 Commercial 153 42.67 Thermal Oil – None
Casablanca 2013 50 50 160,000 2,000,000 Commercial – 40 Diphenyl/Biphenyl oxide 7.5 Molten salts
Enerstar 2013 50 50 100,000 2,140,000 Commercial – 42.8 Thermal Oil – None
Extresol-1 2010 0 50 158,000 2,000,000 Commercial – Diphenyl/Biphenyl oxide 7.5 Molten salts
Extresol-2 2010 49.9 49.9 158,000 2,000,000 Commercial – 40.08 Diphenyl/Biphenyl oxide 7.5 Molten salts
Extresol-3 2012 50 50 158,000 2,000,000 Commercial – 40 Diphenyl/Biphenyl oxide 7.5 Molten salts
Guzmán 2012 50 50 104,000 2,000,000 Commercial – 40 Dowtherm A – None
Helioenergy 1 2011 50 50 95,000 1,100,000 Commercial – 22 Thermal Oil – None
Helioenergy 2 2012 50 50 95,000 1,100,000 Commercial – 22 Thermal Oil – None
Helios I 2012 50 50 97,000 2,600,000 Commercial 52 Thermal Oil None
997
– –
Helios II 2012 50 50 97,000 2,600,000 Commercial – 52 Xceltherm®MK1 – None
Ibersol Ciudad Real 2009 50 50 103,000 1,500,000 – 200 30 Diphenyl/Biphenyl oxide - – None
(Puertollano) Dowtherm A
La Africana 2012 50 50 170,000 2,520,000 Commercial 387 50.4 – 7.5 Molten salts
La Dehesa 2011 49.9 49.9 175,000 2,000,000 – – 40.08 Diphenyl/Biphenyl oxide 7.5 Molten salts
La Florida 2010 50 50 175,000 2,000,000 – – 40 Diphenyl/Diphenyl oxide 7.5 Molten salts
La Risca 2009 50 50 105,200 1,350,000 – – 27 Biphenyl/Diphenyl oxide – None
Lebrija 1 2011 50 50 120,000 1,880,000 – – 37.6 Therminol VP1 – None
Majadas I 2010 50 50 104,500 1,350,000 – – 27 Biphenyl/Diphenyl oxide – None
Manchasol-1 2011 49.9 49.9 – 2,000,000 Commercial – 40.08 Diphenyl/Diphenyl oxide 7.5 Molten salts
Manchasol-2 2011 50 50 2208 2,000,000 Commercial – 40 Diphenyl/Diphenyl oxide 7.5 Molten salts
Morón 2012 50 50 100,000 1,600,000 Commercial 295 32 Thermal Oil – None
Olivenza 1 2012 50 50 100,000 1,600,000 Commercial 284 32 Thermal Oil – None
Orellana 2012 50 50 118,000 1,860,000 Commercial 240 37.2 Thermal Oil – None
Palma del Río I 2011 50 50 114,500 1,350,000 – – 27 Biphenyl/Diphenyl oxide – None
Palma del Río II 2010 50 50 114,500 1,350,000 – – 27 Biphenyl/Diphenyl oxide – None
Solaben 1 2013 50 50 100,000 1,100,000 Commercial – 22 Thermal Oil – None
Solacor 1 2012 50 50 100,000 1,100,000 Commercial – 22 Thermal Oil – None
Solacor 2 2012 50 50 100,000 1,100,000 Commercial – 22 Thermal Oil – None
Termesol 50 (Valle 2) 2011 49.9 2,300,000 – 270 46.09 Diphenyl/Diphenyl Oxide 7.5 Molten salt
Termosol 1 2013 50 2,000,000 Commercial – 40 Thermal Oil 9 Molten salt
Termosol 2 2013 50 2,000,000 Commercial – 40 Thermal Oil 9 Molten salt
M.T. Islam et al.
Table 5
Operational PTC plants in the United States [25].
Project Net turbine capacity Start year Land area (m2) Cost in millions US$ Specific land area – net Solar resource Electricity generation
(MW) (approximately) (m2/kW) (kW h/m2/yr) (MW h/year)
Genesis Solar Energy Project 250 2014 7,891,370 31.57 – 580,000

Holaniku at Keahole Point 2 2009 12,140.60 – 6.07 4030
Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center 75 2010 2,023,430 476.3 26.98 – 155,000
Mojave Solar Project 250 2014 7,142,702 1600 28.57 – 600,000
Nevada Solar One 72 2007 4,000,000 266 55.56 2606 134,000
Saguaro Power Plant 1 2006 64,749.70 6 64.75 2636 2000
Solana Generating Station 250 2013 7,800,000 2000 31.20 – 944,000
Solar Electric Generating Station I (SEGS I) 13.8 1984 – – 0 2725 –
Solar Electric Generating Station II (SEGS II) 30 1985 – – 0 2725 –
Solar Electric Generating Station III (SEGS III) 30 1985 – – 0 2725 –
Solar Electric Generating Station IV (SEGS IV) 30 1989 – – 0 2725 –
998
Solar Electric Generating Station V (SEGS V) 30 1989 – – 0 2725 –
Solar Electric Generating Station VI (SEGS VI) 30 1989 – – 0 2725 –
Solar Electric Generating Station VII (SEGS VII) 30 1989 – – 0 2725 –
Solar Electric Generating Station VIII (SEGS VIII) 80 1989 – – 0 2725 –
Solar Electric Generating Station IX (SEGS IX) 80 1990 – – 0 2725 –
Stillwater GeoSolar Hybrid Plant 2 2015 84,984 – 42.49 – 3000
capacity of 1 MW each; established for demonstration and experimental Besides this, the Kimberlina Solar Thermal Power Plant in the United
purposes. The average daily solar radiation in a year in the city/region States (5 MW), and the Rende-CSP Plant, Italy (1 MW) are the two
in China and Turkey where the plants were established is 3.73 kW h/ linear Fresnel-reflector based CSP plants that were built for demon-
m2/day and 4.78 kW h/m2/day, respectively. The latest operational stration, whereas the Liddell Power Station, Australia (9 MW) and the
power-tower plant named Khi Solar One, and located in South Africa, Puerto Errado 2 Thermosolar Power Plant, Spain (30 MW) were built
was established in 2016; it has a capacity of 50 MW and the expected for commercial production in 2012. Alba Nova 1, France (12 MW) and
electricity generation will be 180,000 MW h/year [25]. IRESEN, a 1 MWe CSP-ORC pilot project, Morocco (1 MW) are plants
The SPT is one of the fastest growing CSP technologies. At present, currently under construction. In China, there are four linear Fresnel-
there are 6 plants under construction, with a total installed capacity of reflector CSP plants under development whose capacity will be 50 MW
632.5 MW and of which the Golmud project located in China is ex- each [25]. Table 7 summarizes characteristics of the Fresnel plants.
pected to contribute 200 MW starting from 2018. The solar resource
calculated for the project is 2158 kW h/m2/year and the estimated
electricity generation will be 1,120,000 MW h/year. In the near future, 3. Status of CSP projects
plants under development based on power-tower technology will reach
around 995 MW and most of the plant will be located in China [25]. It was identified that, even though the first CSP plant was installed
Table 6 shows the operational, under-construction and under-devel- in the USA in 1982, this technology is expanding rapidly worldwide
opment power-tower plants worldwide. and, as a result, there are currently 98 active CSP plants, while 18 are
under construction and 24 plants are under development. Table 8
2.4. Linear Fresnel-reflector (LFR) shows the total number of CSP plants that are installed, under con-
struction and under development, worldwide.
LFR-CSP plants consist of an array of linear mirror strips as re- CSP technology is expected to grow rapidly all over the world,
flectors, with receivers, tracking system, process and instrumentation especially in Asia, the MENA and South American countries. Fig. 13
system, steam turbine and generator. The reflectors are the most im- shows the capacity of the CSP plants in different countries of the world,
portant components in the system and the mechanism of the reflectors out of which 4749 MW, 1187 MW, 4177 MW are operational, under
is the same as that of the Fresnel lens. The sun's rays are reflected by the construction and under development, respectively.
Fresnel lens and focused at one point, generally on to a permanent Daily solar availability, sufficient land area and a source of water for
receiver on a linear tower. In the daytime, the Fresnel reflectors are cooling and cleaning of the reflectors, are crucial for the development
directed automatically toward the sun, and from there the reflected of CSP plants [73]. A range of costs including capital cost, basic cost
solar irradiation carries on to the linear tower where a receiver shaped and operation and maintenance cost, efficiencies, land and water re-
like a long cylinder contains a number of tubes filled with water. With quirements, and others are compared. For all the technologies, the solar
the high solar radiation the water evaporates and under pressure runs radiation, land and water requirement was found to be 1800 kW h/m2,
into the steam turbine that spins a generator that generates electricity 5–7 acres/MW and 4 m3/MW h, respectively. Another research by Pitz-
[3,69–71]. Fig. 12 shows the major components of a LFR plant, and the Paal [74] indicated that parabolic-trough and Fresnel plants require less
1.4 MW Puerto Errado 1 Thermosolar Power Plant. A LFR is made up of area than the other two CSP technologies, especially a SPD with the
a number of linear mirror strips. This type of reflector can also resemble same capacity. However, from installed CSP plant experience, it is
the dismantled reflector of a parabolic-trough system. Using Fresnel found that SPTs require the largest area. But again the area depends on
reflector design, the capital cost of the reflectors becomes lower, the presence of heat storage facilities. If heat storage is not being
however the efficiency is less than with parabolic-trough reflectors considered, the land area requirement will be 25 m2/kW for the PTC
[46,54]. The capacities of the LFR CSP plants vary from 10 to 200 MW and 45 m2/kW for the SPT [75].
and the yearly solar-to-electric efficiency is estimated to be 8–10% PTC and LFR systems are suitable for power generation capacities
[59]. In 1999, the largest LFR CSP plant was built by the Belgian from 10 MW to 200 MW, for SPT 10–150 MW, and finally, the capacity
company Solarmundo on a prototype basis, with a collector width of of the SPD varies from 0.01 MW to 0.4 MW, which is suitable for small
24 m and 2500 m2 reflector area [60]. In 2014, the largest operational and off-grid generation. However, parabolic-trough technology is the
linear Fresnel-reflector CSP plant was installed in India, with a capacity most proven, SPT is mature, and both SPDes and LFRs are in the de-
of 125 MW and a planned electricity generation of 280,000 MW h/year. monstration stage. Unlike the low capacity, SPDes have the highest
concentration ratio, ranging from 1000 to 3000, one of the highest
among all other CSP technologies; the PTC and LFR being low, and the
SPT in the intermediate range. Due to the high concentration ratio, the
SPD system can reach very high temperatures (800 °C) and thereby
achieve high efficiency. SPTs and SPDes are regarded as the most effi-
cient CSP plants, expected to have a 50% better efficiency than the
trough and the Fresnel plants. The annual solar-to-electric conversion
efficiency is higher for SPDes and LFRs than for the PTC and SPT. As
demonstrated, SPDes and LFRs have efficiencies of 29% and 21%, re-
spectively. On the other hand, research by Ummadisingu and Soni [7]
found that SPDes and LFRs have solar-to-electric efficiency of 25–30%.
Even though SPDes have the highest efficiency, the basic plant cost, the
operation and maintenance cost, and the capital costs are the highest
among the plants, with the LFR being the lowest. For both SPD and SPT,
the land use is found to be 8–12 m2/MWh/year, with 6–8 m2/MW h/
year for the PTC and 4–6 m2/MW h/year for the LFR [35].
Fig. 9. 10 MW PS-10 solar power tower at Seville, Spain.
999
Fig. 10. (a) Schematic diagram of molten-salt driven solar power-tower CSP plant [65] and (b) solar power-tower hybridized with combined-cycle plant [67].
Fig. 11. Hybridization of solar power tower CSP with solar PV [68].
4. Previous reviews on CSP process we used the following functions of the software (1) importation
of publication information (2) creating co-occurrence map by text data,
This holistic historical development and current progress in the CSP (3) retrieving data for citation analysis by analyzing co-citation re-
technology have been achieved through intense research and develop- porting and (4) clustering and visualizing keywords by co-occurrence in
ment by global research organizations and universities. Even though network and overlay form. This is one of the most automated and
previous review articles produced on the topic discussed many tech- systematic approaches by which a large body of literature can con-
nological advancements and issues related to CSP, there is a need to veniently be analyzed.
understand the overall research progress by reviewing them. Table 9
summarizes the main body of review articles published on CSP. 5.1. Publication collection
5. Text-mining based bibliometric analysis on CSP research For this study, the Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science (WoS) biblio-
graphic database (Web of Science Core Collection) was selected to ex-
Since CSP research is expanding dramatically, it is challenging to tract publication information on CSP studies. The following search
conduct holistic reviews manually. Instead, we have taken advantage of terms were utilized to collect the maximum number of related papers
bibliographical data, keywords and citations, and utilized free text- on CSP articles by acknowledging that the word “concentrated” is a
mining software, VOSviewer, to generate bibliometric maps of scientific synonym of the word “concentrating” in the title of the articles: “con-
research fields [123–125]. Publications in international peer-reviewed centrating solar power*” OR “concentrating solar thermal*” OR “con-
journals using the software can be found at this source [126]. For the centrating solar collectors” OR “concentrating solar energy” OR
1000
Table 6
Operational, under-construction and under-development SPT plants [25].
Project Start year Country Net turbine capacity (MW) Gross turbine capacity (MW) Status
ACME Solar Tower 2011 India 2.50 2.50 Operational

Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project (Tonopah) 2015 United States 110 110 Operational
Dahan Power Plant 2012 China 1 1 Operational
Gemasolar Thermosolar Plant 2011 Spain 19.90 19.90 Operational
Greenway CSP Mersin Tower Plant 2012 Turkey 1 1.40 Operational
Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System 2014 United States 377 392 Operational
Jemalong Solar Thermal Station 2016 Australia – 1.10 Operational
Jülich Solar Tower 2008 Germany 1.50 1.50 Operational
Khi Solar One 2016 South Africa 50 50 Operational
Lake Cargelligo 2011 Australia 3 3 Operational
Planta Solar 10 2007 Spain 11 11.02 Operational
Planta Solar 20 2009 Spain 20 20 Operational
Sierra SunTower 2009 United States 5 5 Operational
Ashalim Plot B 2017 Israel 121 121 Under Construction
Atacama-1 2018 Chile 110 110 Under Construction
Golmud 2018 China 200 200 Under Construction
NOOR III 2017 Morocco 150 150 Under Construction
Sundrop CSP Project 2016 Australia 1.50 1.50 Under Construction
Supcon Solar Project 2010 China 50 50 Under Construction
Copiapó 2019 Chile 260 260 Under Development
Delingha Qinghai 135 MW DSG Tower CSP Project 2017 China 135 135 Under Development
Dunhuang 100 MW Molten Salt CSP Project – China 100 100 Under Development
Golden Tower 100 MW Molten Salt project 2016 China 100 100 Under Development
Hami 50 MW CSP Project – China 50 50 Under Development
Qinghai Gonghe 50 MW CSP Plant 2016 China 50 50 Under Development
Redstone Solar Thermal Power Plant 2018 South Africa 100 100 Under Development
Shangyi 50 MW DSG Tower CSP project – China 50 50 Under Development
Yumen 100 MW Molten Salt Tower CSP project – China 100 100 Under Development
Yumen 50 MW Molten Salt Tower CSP project – China 50 50 Under Development
Fig. 12. (a) Schematic diagram of CSP plant with Fresnel reflector [3] and 1.4 MW Puerto Errado 1 Thermosolar Power Plant (PE1) at Calasparra, Spain [72].
“concentrated solar power*” OR “concentrated solar thermal*” OR under the scope of the solar and renewable energy field. The first
“Concentrated solar energy”. By using these search terms, the pub- method is a keyword analysis in which the software considers keywords
lication information was downloaded, for example, title, abstract, year that are generally located within the title and abstract. Keyword ana-
of publication, source of journals etc. as a tab-delimited text file, re- lysis results in scientific landscapes with which we follow the devel-
commended for subsequent processing in the VOSviewer software. By opment of CSP topics as well as recent research issues that future re-
this process, a total of 976 research articles on CSP published from 1981 searchers can work with. In the second method, we analyzed citations
to January 2018 were collected. Documents were analyzed according to of highly cited articles that are working as the knowledge base in the
their general pattern and the frequency of publications over the years, field of CSP research. These the methods are described below.
journal source, geographical distribution and finally, an in-depth pub-
lication analysis by keyword and citation that provides a comprehen- 5.3. Keyword analysis
sive understanding of the past trends, new developments and future
prospects of the CSP research area. For the selection of keywords in a scientific landscape, all the key-
words were extracted using the title and abstract of the selected pub-
5.2. Publication analysis lications. Initially, 18,288 terms were found in the publication collec-
tions that were extracted from title and abstract, later they were filtered
In this study two analysis techniques were employed to generate a with a minimum number of occurrence 10. Finally, filtered words were
preliminary result on the progress and future trend of CSP research extracted by means of a built-in text-mining based function of
1001
Table 8
Demonstration
Demonstration
Project type
Commercial
Commercial
Number of CSP plants in the world [25].
Prototype
Type of CSP Operational Under construction Under development
plants
–
–
–
PTCs 77 10 10
Land area
12 acres
SPT 13 6 10
70 ha
23 ha
SPDes 1 0 0
5 ha
– LFRs 7 2 4
–
–
–
Total 98 18 24
Electricity generation
(MW h/yr)
280,000
13,550
49,000
25,000
2000
–
–
–
–
Solar resource
(kW h/m2/yr)
2100
2095
1800
–
–
–
–
–
–
Start year
2012
2014
2008
2012
2009
2012
2015
–
–
–
Gross turbine capacity
Fig. 13. Total capacity of the operational, under-construction and under-de-

velopment CSP plants [25].
VOSviewer [123]. Some of the unrelated words such as abbreviations

(MW)
0.25
125
and generic terms and merged related words (i.e. singular and plural
1.4
30
12
50
50
50
50
5
9
forms of a word) were eliminated by developing a thesaurus file.

With the keywords list VOSviewer generated the co-occurrence map
Net turbine capacity
Turbine Capacity
where keywords were clustered based on their co-occurrences. In a

single document, if the words appear then the words are defined as co-
occurred. Furthermore, the names of the clustered keywords are
manually labelled based on the observed keywords in a cluster. In this
(MW)
0.25
manner, finally a scientific landscape of the CSP research is generated.

125
30
12
50
50
50
50
5
9
–
Here, the size and color of the cluster represents the frequency of the co-
Under development
Under development
Under development
Under development
Under construction
Under construction
occurrence of the keywords and their distinct keyword type, respec-

tively. Finally, if the distance between the keywords is short, that in-
Operational
Operational
Operational
Operational
Operational
Operational
Operational
dicates that keywords co-occur more frequently with each other,

whereas the largest distance means they do not co-occur.
Status
5.4. Citation analysis

United States
Australia
According to Rubin [127], citation analysis is a widely accepted

Country
Morocco
France
France
China
China
China
China
Spain
Spain
India
method that can establish links and relationships to other works or

Italy
researchers by examining the citations of frequency, patterns and gra-

phical representations in article and books. To investigate which works
Puerto Errado 1 Thermosolar Power Plant
Puerto Errado 2 Thermosolar Power Plant
Zhangbei 50 MW CSG Fresnel CSP project

Zhangjiakou 50 MW CSG Fresnel project
are the most influential in CSP research, we developed a co-citation

Dacheng Dunhuang 50 MW Molten Salt
Kimberlina Solar Thermal Power Plant
IRESEN 1 MWe CSP-ORC pilot project
map using the bibliographic information of the whole collection of

publications. This is also done with the VOSviewer. A total of 19,598
Urat 50 MW Fresnel CSP project
cited references found in the collection and a minimum of 20 citations

of a cited reference are selected for the analysis.
Liddell Power Station
LFR CSP plants [25].
Fresnel project
Augustin Fresnel 1
6. Results
Rende-CSP Plant
Alba Nova 1
6.1. Overview of the publications

Dhursar
Project
Table 7
By implementing the methodology described in the previous sec-

tion, we identified a total of 976 articles for CSP. Fig. 14 shows the
1002
Table 9
Previous review articles published in CSP research.
Ref Year of Topic Components in the CSP Name of the journal Major findings and/or future research direction
publication system
M.T. Islam et al.
[76] 2008 Prospects of CSP in China – Renewable and sustainable • CSP technologies can be conveniently adopted in the northern and western part
energy reviews (RSER) of China
• government support and strategies are required for large-scale and commercial
CSP technologies implementation
[77] 2009 China's effort in CSP deployment – RSER • GHG mitigation can be efficiently performed by implementing CSP technology
for China's power generation and heat supply targeting buildings and industry
sectors in China
• scaling up CSP requires institutional and energy pricing reform is required to
eradicate financing barriers
[78] 2009 Reviewing and mathematical model development for Solar field RSER Design optimization opportunity is present in the area of reflective-material
• usage
transmission of concentrated solar energy via optical fibres in receiver, selection of length of fibre-optic bundle (FOB).
(TCSEvOF) for SPD technology
[79] 2011 Fresnel lenses Solar field RSER • non-imaging LFR systems have potential for large-scale commercial power
generation.
[7] 2011 Potential of CSP in India – RSER • Rajasthan and Gujarat in India have the potential for widespread application of
CSP in India
• feed-in tariffs as incentive, government policy and industry-university
collaborations have a crucial role in deploying CSP application for electricity
generation
[33] 2011 CSP potential in Turkey – RSER • Abundant solar radiation and the presence of large wasteland make the
southern and south eastern part of Turkey potential locations for CSP
application.
• Government support and strategies are required for commercial application.
[80] 2012 Thermochemical fuel production and technological Thermal energy storage Energy & Environmental production of solar hydrogen, syngas, and liquid hydrocarbon fuels from H O 2
advancement of CSP Science
• and CO via 2-step redox cycles has tremendous opportunity for large-scale
2
1003
demonstration.
[3] 2012 Description and working principles of CSP technologies and – RSER • PTC, SPD and LFR power plants were found suitable for Serbia
potential implementation in Serbia • isolated community in rural areas can use SPD CSP power plant which can work
independently regardless of the grid connection
[81] 2012 Life cycle assessment (LCA) for PTC and SPT CSP technology – Journal of Industrial Ecology • full-scale LCA study needs to be conducted for individual new CSP power plant
project to unleash the GHG emissions phenomenon with a comparison of
conventional fossil-fuel power plants
[82] 2012 Development Issues and futuristic view for 2050 – Journal of Solar Energy • EU and national-level research funding should be given in the area: high-
Engineering temperature materials, optical coatings, radiative heat-transfer modeling, solar
collectors, heat transfer fluids, thermodynamic cycles, new storage media and
designs of thermal storage system
• Simulation studies of Stochastic power system models for different renewable
energy resources at EU, MENA, and EU–MENA levels in the light of power system
integration
• in the MENA region, Co-funding and co-financing options should be developed by
the EU for large-scale CSP plant commercialization
• national and international research collaboration among universities and
companies
[83] 2012 Development and distribution of CSP technology in China – RSER • Promotion of Stirling engine with integrated energy storage and stand-alone
parabolic reflector with low-cost micro-facet solar concentrator are required for
rural isolated areas of China for industrial and building applications
[34] 2013 Thermal-energy storage system design methodologies Thermal-energy storage Progress in Energy and • Research opportunities in thermal performance and economics of storage
unit Combustion Science medias for TES
• impact of different types of TES systems (in combination) could reduce cost and
increase CSP plant efficiency
[71] 2013 CSP technologies and SPT design methodology Solar field RSER • power yield of a CSP plant can be assessed by annual, monthly and daily levels
of direct (beam) solar irradiation
• technical improvements by design optimization for SPT type power plant
Table 9 (continued)
publication system
M.T. Islam et al.
[84] 2013 Hybrid integration of CSP plant with conventional gas and Hybridization Renewable Energy Based on hybridization scenarios with existing built/under-construction CSP plant,
coal-fired Rankine-cycle power plants and its application the assessment study found that
• LFR systems are suitable for preheating feedwater, < 450 °C steam boost
applications and cold reheat steam
• at steam temperatures < 380 °C, PTCs using thermal oil rank second
• with steam temperatures above 450 °C with direct steam generation, SPT can
perform better using molten salt
• for high-pressure steam delivery at and above 580 °C, SPD is the only alternative
for hybridization scenario
[85] 2013 Technological evolution and applicability of CSP technologies – RSER • Concentrating optical components, absorber tubes, thermal storage material or
in West African countries heat transfer fluids should take advantage of new materials and design concepts
to reduce cost and environmental impacts, at the same time increasing
performance
• Thermal energy storage or heat-transfer oils still have opportunities to improve
• There is a need to assess solar resources for the solar-belt countries. Furthermore,
in terms of scale or materials and equipment, CSP technologies are not well
adapted to these countries
• European countries have the opportunities for developing companies for CSP
process improvement and component development
• CSP is a great opportunity for a West African country like Burkina Faso
[86] 2014 SPT designs with high-temperature power cycles Solar field RSER • for liquid and gaseous working fluids, tubular receivers utilized in the SPT has
potential for improvement
• Further investigation is required for selecting working fluid at SPT plant
according to their storage capabilities (number of hours).
• Opportunities lie in the area of receiver design for SPT plant
1004
[87] 2014 Applicability of high-efficiency thermodynamic cycles in CSP Power block RSER • steam Rankine system can elevate temperature to about 600 °C with higher
power plants thermal efficiency
• Above 600 °C, CO2 recompression Brayton cycle possesses high thermal efficiency
• specific nature of the thermodynamic cycle configuration has to be considered in
case of determining maximum receiver operating temperature (under various
Carnot assumptions)
[88] 2014 TES systems with metal hydrides Thermal storage unit RSER • Metal-hydride (MH) based material modification and heat transfer system
improvement need further attention for cost-effective TES system.
[89] 2014 Properties and applications of high-temperature HTFs Solar field and thermal AIMS Energy • thermal and transport properties of eutectic salts: NaCl-KCl-AlCl3 and NaCl-
storage unit KCl-ZnCl2 need further investigation
• chemical corrosion of different salts to metals of pipes and containers requires
research in the future
[90] 2014 Liquid metals as HTF Solar field and thermal AIMS Energy • Liquid metal is a promising solution for central receiver as high-temperature
storage unit HTF and it contributes to lowering LCOE
• Transfer of knowledge of liquid metal from other fields (glass production or
electronics cooling) to CSP application is necessary
[91] 2014 CSP-related technology transfer to north African countries for – RSER • North African enterprises have the opportunity in manufacturing CSP plant-
employment creation process related components through horizontal technology transfer
[92] 2015 HTFs Solar field and thermal Applied Energy • corrosion characteristics of molten salts to metal alloys needs to be discussed
storage unit further for wide-spread commercial application.
• molten-salts based HTF will be used to achieve higher operating temperature
(800 °C)
• carbonate or chloride-based salts are being proposed but need further
investigation
[93] 2015 PCM's application for thermal energy storage Thermal energy unit Applied Energy • The size of the storage tank can be significantly reduced by using PCM as latent
thermal storage and sensible heat storage
Table 9 (continued)
publication system
M.T. Islam et al.
[94] 2015 Historical development of CSP technologies – RSER cosine effect is reduced LFR type CSP can work more efficiently than globally
• ifcommercialized PTC technology.
the cost of heliostats and receiver are decreased, SPT CSP plant can be a great
• ifcompetitor of PTC
• despite having the highest solar-to-electricity conversion efficiency and no water
consumption, the cost of SPD technology prohibits commercial application
[95] 2015 Overall CSP technology development and its implementation – Chemical Reviews • system-level investigation is required for SPD, SPT and LFR CSP plants.
• athavecomponent level concentrator, receiver, HTF, thermal storage and heat engine
potential for improvement to overcome plant level challenges
• reliability, cost and performance are the major optimization parameters
• technical and innovative perspectives of component manufacturing methods and
their materials for commercialization of CSP plants is an open research and
discussion avenue
[96] 2015 Fresnel lens Solar field RSER • Simultaneous Multiple Surface (SMS) and Total Internal Reflection (TIR) are
the two emerging technologies in the Fresnel lens which need to be investigated
further for CSP application.
[97] 2015 CSP hybridization with biogas production system in Spain – RSER • Hybridization increases the plant operating hours to produce electricity with
minimum cost in comparison with molten-salt TESs
• Hybridization ensures shorter recovery of investment period, larger profitability
and financial resource acquisition
[98] 2015 Transformation of global energy source, CSP as a technology – RSER • electricity transition is a political and economic issue rather than technical
and the role of China
[99] 2015 Electricity generation and future CSP economics in Egypt – RSER • Specialized sub-authority should be created for CSP promotion
• DNI measurement, identify specific sites (land acquisition) for CSP power plants
and conduct feasibility studies (technical support, business partners etc.) are
1005
some of the essential work that needs to be done at national level
[36] 2016 Development trends in high-temperature TES Thermal storage unit RSER • corrosion in molten salts has the incentive to investigate further from
chemistry, metallurgy and thermodynamics points of view.
• thermal cycling and mechanical loading in presence of PCM system requires more
research to have safe and economic TES system
[100] 2016 Technology review of Thermochemical energy storage Thermal storage unit RSER • reactivation cycle needs to be designed at research plant level for calcium
carbonate for further evaluating the potential in CSP's thermal-heat storage
system
• manganese oxide cycle is suitable for desert climate but still needs to be
developed
[101] 2016 Development trend of geometrical configurations for thermal Thermal storage unit RSER • Packed-bed encapsulated PCMs use in the TES is a continuous research area to
energy storage system explore
[102] 2016 CSP potential in Tunisia and European interconnection – RSER • Simulation results show that CSP project can be economically viable when
collector structure and supports, the mirrors and the storage system are
manufactured locally
[30] 2016 Problems and prospects of CSP in desert regions – RSER • dry cooling or CSP-desalination cogeneration technologies are suitable against
water scarcity problems in the CSP plant in desert areas
• Latent-heat storage system (LHSS) will be dominant in future
[103] 2016 Exergetic and environmental life-cycle assessment analysis – RSER • PTC plant possesses superiority over other CSP technologies where DNI is high
regardless of the land usage (shoreline of Libya, for example)
• First, solar field and then storage system showed the highest contribution under
environmental impact categories as steel and synthetic oil are used, respectively
• Solar field represented the highest cost due to initial investment
• The cost can be minimized by increasing plant operation time which generally
involves no fossil-fuel use and zero CO tax
2

Table 9 (continued)
publication system
M.T. Islam et al.
[104] 2016 CSP in India – RSER • Lack of technological data, financial barriers, and complex administrative and
bureaucratic issues in India are the major inhibitor of large-scale CSP
implementation
• Solar PV is the competitor of CSP due to dramatic reduction in cost
• Lack of government support and policy initiative slowing down CSP progress
• With the existing coal-based power plant CSP plant can be hybridized
[105] 2016 Control methods of direct steam generation in linefocus CSP Solar field RSER • An innovative Fresnel collector using a recirculation architecture was
system developed by CNIM company to control several components in the power block
but further research required
[106] 2016 High-temperature receivers for CSP Solar field Applied Thermal Engineering • Performance of particle receivers is higher than with conventional molten
nitrate salts
• There are two types of particle receivers: direct which has high efficiencies due to
direct irradiance of the heat transfer medium whereas “gravity-driven particle
flow through enclosures” and “fluidized particle flow through tubes” are two
types of indirect particle receiver
• If particle receivers are used instead of utility-scale energy storage technologies
such as batteries, pumped hydro, and compressed air energy storage then
levelized cost of thermal storage and electricity conversion was calculated to be
∼ US$10/MW h
[107] 2016 Occupational health and safety in central receiver CSP plant – RSER • Simulation study of the outdoor extreme weather conditions
• Assessing work conditions and standard of safety measures at the receiver and
heliostat surface installations
[108] 2017 Progress in PTC collector Solar field RSER • Needs research on following issues
1. potential ways to improve operating temperatures
2. next generation HTFis needed to be developed for large scale application
1006
3. material of the metal tube of tube receiver operating at high temperature
4. in case of using molten salt corrosion characteristics
5. in water/steam system, high temperature and high pressure operating
condition from the control point of view
6. uniform temperature distribution in case of tube receiver
7. application of inexpensive metal materials with high thermo-mechanical
properties to solve specific problems such as tube receiver deflection and glass
cover rupture
[109] 2017 Life-cycle GHG emission of CSP – Energies • Life-cycle GHG emissions for the PTC, central receiver, SPD were computed as
79.8 gCO2e/kW h, 85.67 gCO2e/kW h, 41 gCO2e/kW h
• PTC and central receiver CSP emitted approximately 50% more GHGs than the
SPD
• LCA study on SPD CSP for assessing environmental contributions is an open
future research topic
[110] 2017 Thermal energy storage of CSP Thermal storage unit RSER • Prospect of latent storage and thermochemical storage is tremendous and needs
research in the area
1. properties enhancement of PCMs and thermochemical materials
2. process of removing solid debris in between the exchange surface of PCM and
HTF
3. development of modular TES assembly and its management
4. enhancement in heat and mass transfer of thermochemical reactions
5. easy-to-use TES integration at CSP plants
6. optimize the charge and discharge transition time of latent-heat storage
Table 9 (continued)
M.T. Islam et al.
publication system
[111] 2017 CSP's economic assessment – RSER • Toneedmake better techno-economic assessment, following are three areas that
further consideration
1. model and method standardization
2. designing new approaches for electricity market and optimization with
operational policy
3. quantification of economic assessments considering uncertainty and
assumptions
[112] 2017 CSP hybridization strategies – RSER • Reliability and optimality in hybrid configurations using solar energy need
further attention in intelligent plant maintenance
[113] 2017 Design parameters of line-focus based CSP plants (LFR and Clean Technologies and • Future research should be conducted on
PTC) Environmental Policy 1. optical efficiency improvement and cost optimization for LFR
2. efficient LFR receiver design with minimal heat loss and cost-efficient
superheating alternatives
3. development of heat-transfer fluid that would have lower freezing point,
higher thermal and chemical stability
4. development of cost-effective TES system
5. coal-based thermal power plants and natural-gas based combined-cycle power
plants in conjunction with CSP need further thermal thermo-economic
assessment
6. control strategies for integrated CSP plants with storage
7. development of techno-economically viable supply-chain management of solar
field
[114] 2017 Technical and economical assessment of commercial TES – RSER Steam-accumulator TES system possesses the best alternatives as a buffer
1007
• storage rather than large capacity storage
• location of the plant, demand profile and market conditions, O&M costs,
materials costs, storage hours, power and efficiency of the cycle, integration and
operation strategies of the TES system into the power plant are some of the crucial
parameters for holistic assessment of the total LOCE
[115] 2017 Simulation-based alternatives for Saudi Arabia's CSP – RSER • Long-term weather data is required for accurate simulation study
deployment • Due to maturity, PTCs have comparatively large potential
• LFR showed lowest levelized cost of energy
• CFs per initial cost is significant for solar SPT
[116] 2017 Progress of CSP in India – RSER • Rajasthan, Gujrat and part of the Andhra Pradesh are popular sites for CSP
plants in India
[117] 2017 Technical and economic potential of CSP in India – RSER • Market-based-energy-storage capacity development is crucial
• bankable DNI database development for potential locations
• with low DNI hours generally during morning and late evening, diesel or gas fuel
back-up system should be integrated for smooth operation
[118] 2017 Use of PCM in thermal storage and heat transfer materials for Thermal storage unit Energies • encapsulated phase-change materials (EPCMs) have significant thermal-storage
CSP capabilities (energy density: 1.25 GJ/m3)
[119] 2017 CSP application in India – RSER • medium temperature (80–250 °C) can be conveniently applied to heating, space
heating and cooling, refrigeration and industrial process heat
• Cost of the technology and its payback period are negligible when fossil-fuel
saving and avoidance of CO2 are considered
compared to solar PV installation, and FiT needs further revision according to
different types of CSP technologies, interaction and interrelationships between

parameters for PTC CSP along with other variables such as water availability,
deployment in Brazil is less advantageous as a latecomer in the solar-
site characteristics, infrastructure connections, the cost of installation and

to lack of government's policy priority CSP investment in China lags
Further investigations are required in the area of drivers/barriers of four

selection of thermal HTF was found to be one of the crucial
market and political environment for establishing global CSP project
the driver/barriers and policy mix for CSP at EU level

Major findings and/or future research direction
market feasibility
energy market
• Appropriate
• Due
• CSP
•
Name of the journal
RSER
RSER
RSER
Components in the CSP
Fig. 14. Number of CSP-related publications over the years (1981 – January
2018).
system
distribution of all the publications over the years, from 1981 to January
2018. It is clear that the total number of publications has continuously
grown. This growth has been significant in the last decade
(2007–2017), as the research published after 2007 consists of 91.5% of
Energy analysis with a proposed model and technical
all the papers published in CSP-related studies. In 2017, the highest

China and Brazil's deployment of CSP technology
number of papers (157 papers) were published.

Drivers and barriers of CSP in European Union
In total, we identified 114 major publication sources (including both

feasibility assessment of CSP in Morocco
journals and conferences). It is found that CSP-related research are

mainly progressed through journals (except AIP conference proceed-
ings) and that the top 15 sources are responsible for around 55% of all
the papers, while the remaining 99 sources are responsible for 36% of
the publications. The rest 9% is from other 104 sources. Fig. 15 shows
the historical progression of the top 15 publication sources. SOLAR
ENERGY and ENERGY PROCEDIA are the two journals where the ma-
jority of the articles have been published in recent times, while REN-
EWABLE SUSTAINABLE ENERGY REVIEWS is the journal that has
contributed progressively and promisingly from the year 2009.
Topic
6.2. Global distribution of publications on CSP
Among the various countries that published CSP-related papers, the

publication
Table 9 (continued)
USA and Spain published more than 38% of all the publications in the
Year of
North American and European regions, respectively. In Asia, China

2017
2018
2018
published 81 papers and India 44 papers. Fig. 16 shows the distribution

of the publications in different regions in the world. Although global
[120]
[121]
[122]
solar energy and CSP potential is high comparatively in the MENA

Ref
countries, as well as Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
1008
Fig. 15. Historical development of CSP-related studies at different journals.
Fig. 16. Distribution of CSP-related publications in the world.
Development (OECD) countries such as Australia, research progress is the publications of 1981 to January 2018. These were further reduced
less than those of their counterparts. There is a clear opportunity for the using the requirement of minimum occurrence of 10 and a thesaurus
researchers from the regions to investigate the development potential of file, to 262 keywords. Fig. 17 shows the resulting scientific landscape of
CSP technologies in collaboration with the countries that are fron- the co-occurrence map of the terms found in the title and abstract of the
trunners in CSP technology development. CSP publications. Each circle represents a term or keyword. The size of
each keyword indicates the utilization of the keyword measured in
terms of publications. The distances between the keywords in this map
6.3. Scientific landscape of CSP research and latest developments
are also important. In general, the smaller the distance between two
keywords, the higher the number of co-occurrences. In the figure, there
Using the title and abstract, a total of 18,288 terms were found from
1009
Fig. 17. Scientific landscape of CSP publications from 1981 to 2018.
Table 10.
Result of keyword clustering by the publication.
Cluster color Research topic Observed keywords Number of keywords
Red Overall CSP plant development and electricity Development, electricity, region, country, assessment, methodology, framework, 115
generation potential, levelized cost of electricity, country
Blue Solar collector Solar collector, receiver, radiation, surface, tube, modeling, conversion 68
Green Thermal-energy storage Temperature, fluid, degree Celsius, heat exchanger, heat transfer, salt, phase-change 79
material
are three clusters, i.e. green, blue and red for the thermal-energy sto- development related researchers does not use the thermal-energy sto-
rage, solar-collector and electricity-generation related keywords, re- rage keywords. Conversely, thermal-energy storage researchers con-
spectively. Table 10 summarizes the clustering result. centrated on the principle of energy storage rather than on research
We can observe that the distance between the green and blue results from solar collectors.
clusters is the shortest whereas the red clusters are situated at the right- There is a clear opportunity for the researcher here in bridging the
hand side of the landscape representing the largest inter-cluster dis- common aspects of CSP technology development by taking into account
tance from the former clusters. The red cluster contains terms that are various factors such as the LCOE, methodology for assessing potential
essentially common for overall CSP plant development and electricity renewable-energy source integration with contextual understanding of
generation considering economic analysis and regional focus. On the the economics of electricity generation from technological knowledge
other hand, in blue and green clusters more of the technical terms ap- gathered from solar-collector and thermal-energy storage researchers.
pear in scientific research on CSP. This indicates that the keywords for Currently, as well as historically, this bridging has been achieved
thermal-energy storage and solar-collector research are the least oc- through one most widely applied CSP technology the parabolic-trough
curring keywords in the field of solar thermal electricity generation as a (ptc) (located at the middle of the figure). Fresnel lenses are located in
whole, in general. In addition, this figure also indicates that three major the solar-collector cluster whereas SPDes are a less researched issue
types of researcher are working in the field of CSP research, namely as from the same cluster, located far within the cluster.
heat-transfer fluid development for efficient thermal-energy storage, If we take a closer look at Fig. 17 we can see that “direct steam
optical performance enhancement of solar collectors and techno-eco- generation” is the new term that appears at the top center of the
nomic assessment of CSP plant development in the world. landscape, situated far from the blue cluster even though it is a part of
In addition, from the clustering result, it is seen that co-occurrence it. An overlay visualization is also generated which also reflects that
of thermal-energy storage research related keywords are occur less in direct steam generation (DSG) is a comparatively new keyword that
the area of solar-collector research. In other words, thermal-energy appeared in the literature after 2014. Other keywords appearing most
storage research papers do not contain solar-collector related keywords. recently are solar multiple (12), flexibility (21), levelized cost of elec-
We can infer from this that the focus of solar-collector design and tricity (44), system advisory model (17), organic rankine cycle (19),
1010
Fig. 18. Scientific landscape of CSP publications from 2011 to 2015.
supercritical CO2 (23), calcium (10), thermos chemical-energy storage Uzbekistan. Nine articles were published in RSER and eight in Solar
(17). Fig. 18 shows the appearance of the keywords in the scientific Energy – two highly influential scientific journals. The least number of
landscape of CSP research from the year 2011 to 2015 and onwards. In citations (69) was received by the article “Life Cycle Assessment of a
the next section we conduct a citation analysis by which we can identify PTC Concentrating Solar Power Plant and the Impacts of Key Design
influential research papers and their contribution to the expanding CSP Alternatives” by Burkhardt [129] published in Environmental Science &
research. Technology with yearly average citations of 8.63.
6.4. Top cited papers in the CSP research 6.5. Direct steam generation (DSG) – research trends and perspectives
With the methodology described for citation analysis, 29 publica- As observed in figures (Figs. 17 and 18), DSG is one of the tech-
tions were found that are considered as the most influential, based on nologies/processes that is receiving attention from the research com-
their total citation and yearly average citation. Table 10 shows the most munity, and we conduct further investigation on this term. We have
highly cited articles by their title, name of the journal where the paper seen in the global progress in CSP technology, PTC is the most widely
was published, author's name, country of the corresponding author, commercialized CSP plant type that is subject to continuous advance-
year of publication, total citation and average annual citation. The ment. Within this incremental improvement effort, DSG is a developing
impact of publications can be identified by the annual variations in the technology that is already identified as a cheaper system for electricity-
number of citations. The most highly cited article was entitled “Solar generation and heat-process requirements [154,155]. According to Al-
thermal collectors and applications” authored by Kalogirou [46] and hayek et al. [156], DSG is a process by which steam is directly produced
published in Progress in Energy and Combustion Science with 895 ci- in the PTC fields and supplied to a power block for electricity produc-
tations and 59.67 annual citations. “State of the art on high temperature tion. This process simplifies operation and improves the cost-effec-
thermal energy storage for power generation. Part 1-Concepts, mate- tiveness of the PTC plant by increasing the permissible temperature of
rials and modellization” authored by Gil [128] and published in RSER, the working fluid. Instead of the current synthetic-oil based HTF tech-
took the second position in terms of annual average citations (59.22). nology, DSG diminishes the necessity for any intermediary for heat
Of the 29 articles listed in Table 11, 13 articles came from Europe transfer and overcomes the intermittent nature of solar (for TES). Be-
(including the two most cited articles), underscoring that Europe has a sides, application in the PTC, DSG is the next-generation CSP plants that
tremendous influence on CSP research. In contrast, 9 articles came from can be widely used in other thermal applications such as sterilization
the USA and the remaining few were from Australia, China and processes and desalination evaporator supplies [157]. Fig. 19 shows the
1011
Table 11.
Citation analysis of the publications in CSP research (2000–2016).
M.T. Islam et al.
Title Journal Corresponding author Country of corresponding Publication year Total number of Average citations
author citations per year
Solar thermal collectors and applications [46] Progress in Energy and Combustion Kalogirou SA Cyprus 2004 895 59.67
Science
Solar thermochemical production of hydrogen – a review [130] Solar Energy Steinfeld A Switzerland 2005 652 46.57
State of the art on high-temperature thermal energy storage for power RSER Medrano M Spain 2010 533 28.67
generation. Part 2 – Case studies [131]
State of the art on high temperature thermal energy storage for power RSER Gil A Spain 2010 533 59.22
generation. Part 1-Concepts, materials and modellization [128]
Advances in solar thermal electricity technology [132] Solar Energy Mills D Australia 2004 376 25.07
Advances in PTC solar power technology [133] Journal of Solar Energy Price H USA 2002 373 21.94
Engineering-Transactions of the
ASME
Parabolic-trough solar collectors and their applications [53] RSER Fernandez-garcia A Spain 2010 336 37.33
A review of solar collectors and thermal energy storage in solar thermal Applied Energy Tian Y China 2013 329 54.83
applications [134]
Thermal energy storage technologies and systems for concentrating solar power Progress in Energy and Combustion Kuravi S USA 2013 295 49.17
plants [34] Science
High-temperature phase change materials for thermal energy storage [135] RSER Kenisarin MM Uzbekistan 2010 277 30.78
Two-tank molten salt storage for PTC solar power plants [136] Energy Herrmann U Germany 2004 226 15.07
Development of a molten-salt thermocline thermal storage system for PTC plants Journal of Solar Energy Pacheco JE USA 2002 217 12.76
[137] Engineering-Transactions of the
ASME
Performance of a concentrating photovoltaic/thermal solar collector [138] Solar Energy Coventry JS Australia 2005 199 14.21
Concentrated solar power plants: Review and design methodology [139] RSER Zhang HL Belgium 2013 191 31.83
1012
Assessment of a molten salt HTFin a PTC solar field [140] Journal of Solar Energy Kearney D USA 2003 187 11.69
ASME
Volumetric receivers in Solar Thermal Power Plants with Central Receiver Solar Energy Avila-marin AL Spain 2011 180 22.50
System technology: A review [141]
A review of studies on central receiver solar thermal power plants [142] RSER Behar O Algeria 2013 175 29.17
Survey of thermal energy storage for PTC power plants [143] Journal of Solar Energy Herrmann U Germany 2002 175 10.29
ASME
Innovation in concentrated solar power [144] Solar Energy Materials and Solar Barlev D USA 2011 170 21.25
Cells
Review of high-temperature central receiver designs for concentrating solar RSER Ho CK USA 2014 149 29.80
power [145]
Compact LFR solar thermal powerplants [146] Solar Energy Mills DR Australia 2000 134 7.05
Comparison of Linear Fresnel and PTC Collector power plants [147] Solar Energy Morin G Germany 2012 130 18.57
A review on high temperature thermochemical heat energy storage [148] RSER Parbo P France 2014 123 24.60
Thermal analysis of solar thermal energy storage in a molten-salt thermocline Solar Energy Yang Z USA 2010 120 13.33
[149]
Review on concentrating solar power plants and new developments in high RSER Liu M Australia 2016 95 31.67
temperature thermal energy storage technologies [150]
Heat transfer fluids for concentrating solar power systems – A review [151] Applied Energy Vignarooban K USA 2015 93 23.25
Performance model for PTC solar thermal power plants with thermal storage: Solar Energy Garcia LI Spain 2011 90 11.25
Comparison to operating plant data [152]
The potential role of concentrated solar power (CSP) in Africa and Europe-A Energy policy Viebahn P Germany 2011 81 10.13
dynamic assessment of technology development, cost development and life
cycle inventories until 2050 [153]
Life Cycle Assessment of a PTC Concentrating Solar Power Plant and the Impacts Environmental Science & Burkhardt JJ USA 2011 69 8.63
of Key Design Alternatives [129] Technology
Fig. 19. Comparison between (a) direct steam generation (DSG) and (b) heat transfer fluid (HTF) CSP power plants [158].
PTC type CSP plant with DSG and with typical HTF. DSG integration in these types of plants, which can be overcome by
According to Fernández-García et al. [53], DSG has the following continuous management of solar collectors during sunrise and sunset
advantages over a conventional synthetic-oil based PTC system: 1) no [20]. Fossil and biomass hybridization with PTC plant using DSG
environmental risk of fire and leakage, 2) a maximum temperature for technology is found to be an economically competitive viable option
the thermodynamic cycle can be achieved of over 400 °C, which is [156,159].
difficult to achieve in the presence of synthetic oil, 3) as there is no oil/
steam heat exchanger, overall plant efficiency can be higher, 4) sim- 7. Conclusion and future work
plified plant configuration with lower capital investment, and finally 5)
operation and maintenance costs are lower than for a synthetic oil Electricity production from conventional energy sources creates
based PTC system, primarily as there is no auxiliary heating system. several bottlenecks such as the risk of a sudden drop in supply quantity,
As there is a large body of literature in the CSP research field, it is emission of major GHGs like CO2, and a threat to overall environmental
worthwhile to investigate such a promising technology, in particular. sustainability. On the other hand, renewable-energy sources provide
Table 12 summarizes the most recent and relevant articles published in abundant, clean and sustainable energy that will clearly be at the
DSG technology. We sub-grouped the publications according to their forefront in terms of delivering an inexhaustible supply of energy. CSP
type of research and CSP component level in relation to the DSG. There is capable of bulk electricity generation and many of the industrialized
are a total of forty four different studies identified on DSG, where nations are investing heavily in CSP technology. Among the four dif-
studies were based on analytical methodology (2), dynamic modeling ferent types of CSP technologies, the parabolic trough collector (PTC)
and simulation (1), energetic analysis (1), energy and exergy analysis and the solar power tower (SPT) are the two popular technologies that
(1), energy-economic analysis (1), exergy and exergy-economic analysis are currently installed in many countries, such as Spain, USA, China,
(1), experimental (7), experimental and simulation (1), Mathematical and India. Research and publications on CSP is expanding at a tre-
modeling (2), modeling and dynamic analysis (2), modeling and ex- mendous pace. With VOSviewer text-mining software, a bibliometric
perimental (2), modeling and optimization (1), modeling and simula- analysis on CSP research was performed and the scientific landscape of
tion (10), multi-level analytical methodology (1), performance assess- the most widely researched, newly emerging topics and the most in-
ment (1), simulation (7), thermo-economic analysis (2). fluential articles were identified and reviewed. The direct steam gen-
Among the experimental work, most were related to designing and eration (DSG) technology of the PTC collector is a comparatively
optimization of thermal-energy storage. Modeling and simulation stu- evolving research topic which possesses opportunity in hybridizing
dies focused on designing and validating a control system for optimum with other CSP technologies for electricity and thermal heat produc-
steam generation, its flow pattern and thermodynamic performance in a tion. Other potential research topics on CSP are optimization of solar
DSG system at PTC-type plant. Although DSG was originally developed fields (solar multiple), estimation of levelized cost of electricity with
for a PTC-type plant, recent studies showed that hybridization of the sensitivity analysis, application of system advisory model (SAM) in CSP
PTC plant with other types of CSP plant such as a SPT and LFR even a plant development, implementation of organic rankine cycle engine for
SPD using DSG, were also being considered for cost reduction in steam heat and power production, investigation on supercritical CO2 power
and electricity generation. However, synchronizing solar fields with cycle in CSP plants, performance analysis of calcium-looping and
receivers and supercritical steam turbines are the major challenges of thermo-chemical energy storage in the CSP systems. Desalination, life-
1013
Table 12
Related studies in direct steam generation (DSG) of CSP plant.
Ref. Author(s) Year of Topic Type of CSP Type Relation to DSG
publication plant
M.T. Islam et al.
[160] Guo et al. 2018 Design and optimization of storage system PTC Experimental Influence of thermal storage system on DSG
[161] Li et al. 2017 Thermal load and bending analysis of heat collection element PTC Modeling and simulation Evaporation and superheating stages of DSG
[156] Alhayek et al. 2017 Steam generation in hybridized system (biomass boiler PTC Energy and exergy analyses Innovative hybridization
integration)
[162] Biencinto et al. 2017 Behavior and yearly performance in electricity production PTC Modeling and Simulation Steam pressure regulation by sliding-pressure
strategies at turbine inlet
[163] Guo et al. 2017 Modeling and controlling for recirculation mode PTC Dynamic modeling and simulation Designing, testing and validation of automatic
control system
[164] Serrano-Aguilera et al. 2017 Thermal hydraulic RELAP5 model PTC Modeling and experimental Reliable and efficient two-phase flow modeling
tools
[165] Guo et al. 2017 Dynamic behavior of solar collector under moving shadow PTC Modeling and simulation Fluid parameters
conditions
[166] Abdel Dayem et al. 2017 Performance assessment PTC Simulation Performance comparison with saturated steam and
superheated production
[167] Li et al. 2017 Thermodynamic and economic investigation PTC Mathematical modeling Operational performance and economics of steam
accumulator and screw expander
[168] Ruiz-Cabañas et al. 2017 Cost and thermal efficiency optimization by integrated steam- PTC Experimental High-temperature hydroxides corrosion
PCM heat exchanger
[169] Bortolato et al. 2017 Designing and performance analysis of flat plate absorber PTC Experimental Thermal performance solar collector during steam
generation
[170] Suojanen et al. 2017 Modeling, analysis and comparison of three hybrid configurations LFR Simulation Application of DSG in a CSP plant coupled with
in a combined CSP and conventional steam power plant steam boiler
[171] Li et al. 2017 Optical-hydraulic-thermal-elastic synergistic issue of a CSP plant PTC Analytical methodology Performance prediction and component-orientated
monitoring with the presence of DSG
[172] Li et al. 2017 Performance evaluation of a DSG-PTC-CSP plant PTC Multi-level analytical methodology Performance prediction with the presence of DSG
1014
system
[173] Liu et al. 2016 Flow field optimization of solar receiver PTC Simulation Reliability of solar receivers based on
circumferential temperature difference
[174] Guo et al. 2016 Non-linear distributed parameter model (NDPM) development for PTC Modeling and dynamic analysis Operation and control of DSG
solar collectors
[175] Hoffmann et al. 2016 Dynamics of severe slugging PTC Simulation Performance evaluation of water steam flows
[176] Núnez Bootello et al. 2016 Designing flat parametric trough collector by simultaneous PTC Modeling Optical analysis of multi-tube receiver
multiple-surface (SMS) method
[177] Olson and Talghader 2016 Optimization of solar selective coating PTC Modeling and optimization Thermal performance
[178] Biencinto et al. 2016 TRNSYS software based modeling for pipes and collector PTC Simulation Dynamic behavior of DSG at transient conditions
components
[66] Manente et al. 2016 Integrated solar combined cycles PTC, LFR Modeling by Thermoflex® environment Hybrid application
and SPT
[179] Ortega-Delgado et al. 2016 Cost of steam consumption in distillation process PTC Thermo-economic analysis - joint Application of DSG
production of electricity and water
[180] Coco-Enríquez et al. 2015 Innovative DSG + supercritical CO2 solar power plants for PTC Modeling and simulation Thermodynamic performance
supercritical Brayton power cycles
[181] Elsafi 2015 Thermo-hydraulic performance analysis PTC Modeling and simulation Prediction of flow patterns at evaporation section
[182] Elsafi 2015 Designing and optimization of DSG power plant PTC Exergy and exergoeconomic analysis Non-reheating and reheating by steam–steam heat
exchanger configuration
[183] Nolte et al. 2015 Solar receiver tube and plant design PTC Mathematical modeling Mass flow rates, tube diameters and operating
pressures
[13] Sun et al. 2015 Characteristics, performance and operational strategy PTC Modeling and simulation Exergy efficiency DSG loop in recirculation mode
[184] Bouvier et al. 2015 Performance analysis of micro-cogeneration system PTC Micro-CHP Two-phase flow saturated steam production
[185] Zapata 2015 Designing of once-through steam-cavity receiver PTC Modeling and simulation State-space based control strategies
[186] Zapata 2015 Designing and testing of full state linear-feedback controller SPD Experimental Mass flow control strategy
[187] Xu and Wiesner 2015 Development and performance analysis of closed form DSG PTC Simulation Temperature profiles of the glass envelope and
absorber wall
cycle assessment, hydrogen production and phase-change material
Cost of steam production and turbine steam mass

DSG of LFR fields for cheaper alternative to PTC
Optimum design radiation (DNI) of a CSP plant,

(PCM) should be reviewed in the further studies.
Sizing of solar field, sizing of power block and
Radial domain discretization of DSG absorbers
Cycle temperature and pressure optimization
Behavioral analysis of solar absorber tube

Acknowledgements
Application of storage material for DSG

Steam electrolysis process optimization
Thermocline TES in steam generation

Regenerators and latent heat storage
Energy and economic performance
Rankine cycle steam management

deciding power cycle parameters
The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their
constructive comments on the manuscript. Thanks to Dr. Keith Imrie for
flows in the integrated plant

proofreading the manuscript. The first author acknowledges funding
support from Macquarie University under an International Research
Training Program (iMQRTP) scholarship.
Relation to DSG
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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 91 (2018) 987–1018

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

A comprehensive review of state-of-the-art concentrating solar power (CSP) T

1. Introduction Moreover, fossil-fuel energy sources are responsible for an increasing

Abbreviation TES thermal energy storage

Fig. 4. Number of CSP technology-related patents.

Fig. 6. Main parts of a CSP plant and their components [34].

Characteristics of CSP technologies [3,7,21,34–37].

Capacity (MWe) 10–200 10–200 10–150 0.01–0.4

Fig. 7. Parabolic dish for village power application [39].

working ﬂuid. Depending on the concentration ratio, solar intensity,

can be stored and used later to generate electricity when sunlight is

absent. Among the various solar harvesting technologies, this system

ensures the best land use [3,7,12,40–43,55]. Some parabolic-trough

CSP technologies, the parabolic-trough system is more advanced [43].

nology. The ﬁrst parabolic-trough system was developed in 1912 in

the United States. Two plants are located in Morocco, 2 in Italy, 2 in

turbine capacity varies from 22.5 MW to 50 MW. The ﬁrst parabolic-

trough system was installed in 2008 near Granada, named Andasol-1

the plant was estimated to be 2136 kW h/m2. The planned electricity

generation is 158,000 MW h/year [25]. Helios I and Helios II are the

operational parabolic-trough plants in Spain reached 1871.9 MW up

until 2016. Table 4 summarizes the details of PTC plants in Spain.

stalled capacity of parabolic-trough CSP plants reached a capacity of

capacity, each representing the highest capacity using the technology in

Image source [50] Image source [51]

Genesis Solar Energy Project 250 2014 7,891,370 31.57 – 580,000

Fig. 9. 10 MW PS-10 solar power tower at Seville, Spain.

ACME Solar Tower 2011 India 2.50 2.50 Operational

Fig. 13. Total capacity of the operational, under-construction and under-de-

VOSviewer [123]. Some of the unrelated words such as abbreviations

forms of a word) were eliminated by developing a thesaurus ﬁle.

where keywords were clustered based on their co-occurrences. In a

manner, ﬁnally a scientiﬁc landscape of the CSP research is generated.

occurrence of the keywords and their distinct keyword type, respec-

dicates that keywords co-occur more frequently with each other,

5.4. Citation analysis

According to Rubin [127], citation analysis is a widely accepted

method that can establish links and relationships to other works or

researchers by examining the citations of frequency, patterns and gra-

Zhangbei 50 MW CSG Fresnel CSP project

are the most inﬂuential in CSP research, we developed a co-citation

IRESEN 1 MWe CSP-ORC pilot project

map using the bibliographic information of the whole collection of

cited references found in the collection and a minimum of 20 citations

6.1. Overview of the publications

By implementing the methodology described in the previous sec-

(continued on next page)

compared to solar PV installation, and FiT needs further revision according to

diﬀerent types of CSP technologies, interaction and interrelationships between

site characteristics, infrastructure connections, the cost of installation and

Further investigations are required in the area of drivers/barriers of four

market and political environment for establishing global CSP project

the driver/barriers and policy mix for CSP at EU level

all the papers published in CSP-related studies. In 2017, the highest

number of papers (157 papers) were published.

In total, we identiﬁed 114 major publication sources (including both

journals and conferences). It is found that CSP-related research are

6.2. Global distribution of publications on CSP

Among the various countries that published CSP-related papers, the

North American and European regions, respectively. In Asia, China

published 81 papers and India 44 papers. Fig. 16 shows the distribution

solar energy and CSP potential is high comparatively in the MENA