Concentrating Solar Thermal Power (CSP)

Also called concentrating solar power or solar thermal electricity, STE. Technology which uses mirrors to focus sunlight into an intense solar beam that heats a working fluid in a solar receiver, which then drives a turbine or heat engine/generator to produce electricity. The mirrors can be arranged in a variety of ways, but they all deliver the solar beam to the receiver. There are four types of commercial CSP systems: parabolic troughs, linear Fresnel, power towers and dish/engines. The first two technologies are line-focus systems, capable of concentrating the sun’s energy to produce temperatures of 400 °C, while the latter two are point-focus systems which can produce temperatures of 800 °C or higher .