Fig. 6. Annual power generation and potential installed capacity of concentrated solar power (CSP) plants with four different technologies by province in China: (A) Parabolic trough collector (PTC), (B) linear Fresnel collector (LFC), (C) central receiver system (CRS), and (D) parabolic dish system (PDS).
According to statistics of the China Solar Thermal Alliance, by the end of 2021, the total installed capacity of global solar thermal power generation reached 6.8 GW, and the figure in China was 538 MW (only including power generation systems at or higher than the MW scale).
Over 99% of China's technical potential is concentrated in five western provinces. Concentrated solar power (CSP) technology can not only match peak demand in power systems but also play an important role in the carbon neutrality pathway worldwide. Actions in China is decisive.
The Blue Book summarizes the operational status of seven solar thermal power demonstration projects in China and one solar tower plant in a multi-energy complementary project.
The results show that China is rich in solar resources and has excellent CSP development potential. Approximately 11% of China’s land is suitable for the construction of CSP stations, of which more than 99% is concentrated in five provinces in the northwest region (i.e., Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, and Ningxia).
The current installed capacity of CSP of 420 MW is much lower than China's total potential installed capacity (2.45 × 10 7 –5.40 × 10 7 MW) estimated in this study. The power generation potential is expected to be 6.46 × 10 13 –1.85 × 10 14 kWh, which is 8.91–25.52 times the national power consumption in 2019.