Containing 90% of the CSP plants in the world, Spain and the United States are the top two countries that utilize Concentrated Solar Power. They mainly use these plants because of government support in the forms of tax incentives and feed-in tariffs.

The Levelized Cost of Electricity produced at CSP plants is mainly concentrated in the initial investment of the plants (about 4/5ths of the cost is the initial investment).  Operation and maintenance costs are very low for these plants.

 

Parabolic Trough systems seem to be the dominant CSP device in the market for concentrated solar power (about 80% of CSP plants utilize parabolic troughs). Because of this, most of the data for costs and economic trends are focused on parabolic trough plants.

Efficiency:

Comparison of CSP devices:

 Written by: Dani de Lucio

Edited by: Michael Duncan

Figures and Data Provided from:

Class Notes (http://prezi.com/ic6p7nbzxddp/352-11-12/) 

Concentrating Solar Power. (n.d.). IRENA. Retrieved April 9, 2014, from http://www.irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/RE_Technologies_Cost_Analysis-CSP.pdf

Konrad, T. (2006). They do it with mirrors: Concentrating Solar Power. Clean Energy Wonk. Retrieved April 8, 2014, from http://cleanenergywonk.com/2006/12/07/they-do-it-with-mirrors-concentrating-solar-power/