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Another Pathway to Large-Scale Power Generation: Concentrating Solar Power

Mark Mehos^a1

^a1 National Renewable Energy Laboratory, USA

Photovoltaics is not the only means of using sunlight to generate electricity. Another major solar technology is called “concentrating solar power” or CSP. CSP technologies use concentrating optics to generate high temperatures that are used to drive conventional steam or gas turbines. CSP is generally considered a central generation technology, rather than a source of distributed generation. That is, a large amount of power is generated in one location, with transmission and distribution to the various points of use, rather than generating small amounts of the power at numerous points of use. Because of this feature, CSP is predominantly a utility-scale source of power.

Mark Mehos can be reached at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, MS 1725, 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO 80401, USA; tel. 303–384–7458, fax 303–384–7495, and e-mail mark_mehos@nrel.gov.

Mehos is the program manager of the Concentrating Solar Power Program at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Mehos earned his MS degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and his BS degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Colorado. He has been with NREL since 1986. In addition to his work with the Concentrating Solar Power Program, Mehos leads NREL's High-Temperature Thermal Team, which focuses on developing low-cost, highperformance, high-reliability systems using concentrated sunlight to generate power—particularly large multimegawatt parabolic trough systems and kilowatt-scale concentrating photovoltaic systems. Mehos also participated in New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson's Concentrating Solar Power Task Force, and in the Solar Task Force for the Western Governors' Association Clean and Diversifed Energy Initiative. His interests include advanced optical materials, solar photocatalysis, and dish/Stirling research and development.