Hot solar tips for 2013: Middle East rising, PV leasing, CSP by Sophie Vorrath

Everyone loves solar power. Except maybe Australia's energy utilities... and some of itsstate governments... Anyway, we know our readers love hearing about what's happening in the solar industry, so we thought we'd put together a list of things to look out for in the solar year ahead. Enjoy.

Hot global markets

The Middle East: With Abu Dhabi's 100MW Shams 1 solar plant – the largest single-unit solar power plant in the world, which aims to providing 20,000 homes in the region with renewable electricity – set to switch on in the first quarter of 2013 (to be followed shortly thereafter by Shams 2 & 3, which will aim to generate similar levels of electricity) the Middle Eastern nations are looking like the ones to watch in 2013 – especially for concentrated solar power. As we wrote earlier this month, both Saudi Arabia and COP18 host country Qatar reinforced their intentions to invest tens of billions of dollars into large-scale CSP – including solar thermal and concentrated solar PV technologies – at the Doha climate talks.

Saudi Arabia intends to spend $110 billion on installing more than 41GW of solar over the coming two decades, including 25GW of CSP, while Qatar intends to build 1.8GW of large-scale solar by 2020 and has a 30 per cent renewables target by 2030. Much of this will come from CSP – with the first pilot plants featuring parabolic trough technologies opened in December to coincide with Doha. Dubai is also building a 1GW solar park, and Kuwait, which already has a 50MW CSP facility, is aiming for 15 per cent renewables (almost all CSP) by 2030.

As Giles Parkinson wrote, "the strategy is significant because the sheer weight of investment and deployment will almost certainly spark the slump down the cost curve which did not occur after the initial deployment of CSP petered out in Spain. ...CSP is considered critical if any of the 100 per cent renewable energy scenarios are to be implemented, because it has the ability to add storage and provide 'dispatchable' energy – allowing it to smooth over and fill in the gaps between intermittent sources such as wind and solar."

And just this week comes the news that Megalim Solar Power Limited, a special purpose vehicle of BrightSource Energy and Alstom, has won the tender for the construction of a 121MW solar thermal power plant in Israel that is expected to come online in 2017. It is one of the three projects selected under Israel’s Ashalim 250MW tender announced in 2008. The project will be located in the Ramat Negev Regional Council 3.15 square kilometer site in Nagev Desert of Israel.

Other markets to watch include India, with its newly set interim target of 9GW of grid connected solar by 2017; China – of course – with speculation arising earlier this month that it is ready to lift its target for the deployment of solar to 40GW by 2015, just weeks after the official target was raised to 21GW. This includes 3,000MW of solar thermal. South Africa is another to watch as it continues to roll out its auction system. Andaccording to First Solar's James Hughes, Latin America is another potentially exciting market that's already showing signs of growth, including subsidy free plants in Chile, which has high electricity costs, plenty of sun, and a lack of alternatives.

Hot technology

Concentrated solar power: We know that the Gulf nations are planning to pour billions into CSP technology as part of their plan to replace oil-based power plants. Indeed Qatar's first pilot plants featuring parabolic trough technologies were opened at the start of the month to coincide with COP18 in Doha. Outgoing Australian Solar Institute chief Mark Twidell – who listed the slow pace of CSP growth as the biggest industry low of 2012 – is encouraged by this fact, and describes it as the "missing link" in high renewable penetration scenarios. As French energy giant Alstom has also recognised, the dispatchable nature of solar thermal with storage will make it a particularly valuable form of energy in most future scenarios.

In Australia, says Twidell, several local groups are doing important work in high temperature storage – using graphite blocks, and novel liquids and metals to store high temperature fluids which can then be converted into electricity. And he says the potential for hybrids is also exciting, like pre-heating water for use in coal-fired plants and work alongside gas-fired units. But some of the most exciting local work in CSP technology is being carried out by the CSIRO, which is leading a major new research initiative in that aims to reduce the cost of the technology to between 9c and 12c a kilowatt hour, so that it will be able to compete with fossil fuels – possibly as early as 2016.

The Australian Solar Thermal Research Initiative (ASTRI) was unveiled just last week, delivering $35 million of funding from the Australian Solar Institute and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, as part of an $87 million research program that will also draw on money from the private sector. The program brings together Australian and US research institutions, with United States research collaborators and with leading international and Australian CSP companies.

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