The LCOE of CSP has experienced a dropping trend through past decades. DEWA's recent 200MW solar tower CSP project received world record-low bidding price of $9.45 cents/kWh, and meanwhile, SolarReserve confirmed with South Australia government that they would build a 150 MW molten salt tower plant at Port Augusta, setting another milestone with the price no more than AUD $7.8 cents/kWh (USD $6.1 cents/kWh). Obviously, CSP, as a promising solar power technology, is becoming increasingly competitive.

The roadmap of the cost reduction trend provides signals for CSP cost research. Spanish company Empresarios Agrupados (EA), joined the bidding process together with ACWA Power consortium, who offered the lowest price of $9.45 cents/kWh. Mr. Xavier Lara, the Executive Director of Construction and Services Business Unit from EA talks to CSP Focus on how they can achieve such low price. And Xavier will demonstrate the detailed ideas during the upcoming CSP Focus MENA 2017 Sept.13-14 Dubai conference with the keynote speech on "Roadmap to reduce the LCOE under 0.08 USD/kWh, optimizing the CSP Technology".

Roadmap to reduce solar CSP LCOE under 8 cents/kWh

1. The falling cost of CSP.
It facilitates CSP's deployment and makes CSP as alternative option for renewables.

2. Contributing factors to the LCOE.
There are lots of factors impact the LCOE. Financial conditions, quality of key components and materials, O&M cost, water usage, terms of PPA… all of those factors may contribute to the final LCOE of a CSP plant.

3. Strategies to reduce the LCOE in the different systems of a CSP Power Plant.
Understand how to reduce the LCOE from all of the important factors.

4. PT VS. ST VS. Hybridization CSP-PV. PT dominates the markets before but ST is catching up.
It is necessary to make a comparison between them regarding the cost reduction potential. And, the cost and performance of hybridization CSP-PV plant is interesting, like Noor Midelt project in Morocco.

5. Forecasted LCOE for future CSP Projects in MENA and China.
MENA owns better solar resources, the LCOE is expected to drop after more projects deployed. China is another growth point of CSP, it will contribute to the cost reduction through its traditional advantages.

Mr. Xavier Lara has a huge experience in Generation Projects, being Project Director of 3 CSP plants in Spain, 2 CSP in India and 2 CSP in Morocco. He owns an overall point of view about developing, construction, commissioning and O&M faces of the projects. Other prominent speakers with Mr. Xavier Lara are from leading CSP firms like ACWA Power, Saudi Electricity Company, MASEN, Abengoa, SolarReserve, DLR, ENGIE, TSK, KAUST, SUPCON, Royal Tech…

Click to see Speaker List of CSP Focus MENA 2017 Sept.13-14 Dubai.