Concentrating Solar Power (CSP), could play an important role in the future European power market, offering a number of potential benefits aligned with European energy policy aims. First, CSP can produce high-value, dispatchable power on demand to balance the intermittent...
Concentrating Solar Power (CSP), could play an important role in the future European power market, offering a number of potential benefits aligned with European energy policy aims. First, CSP can produce high-value, dispatchable power on demand to balance the intermittent sources and thus contribute to the energy transition. Second, trading CSP across borders would support the EU’s aim of cost-efficiently decarbonising the power system through cooperation between Member States. Trading CSP from Southern to Central and Northern Europe may thus both increase the stability of a high-renewables future power system and lower the total system costs. In this context, the overall goal of MUSTEC is to assess the existing barriers and opportunities for CSP to play a key role in the future European electricity system by supplying firm electricity from Southern to Northern European Countries, and to develop and propose concrete policy instruments to overcome the barriers for the realisation of specific types of CSP and intra-European CSP trade projects.
During this first reporting period, WP1 has been devoted to effectively coordinate project activities, ensure their quality as well as establishing a good working environment within the project team. Such positive environment has been key for a successful execution of the different tasks that are heavily dependent on each other. As for dissemination and communication (WP2), the focus has been on building the project identity, establishing the communication and dissemination strategy, as well as the exploitation plan, building the respective communication channels, establishing synergies with relevant actors and participating in relevant activities. WP3 has examined the socio-political acceptance of the implementation of cooperation projects of the RES Directive to supply electricity from Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants in the South of Europe to Central and Northern Europe. WP4 has identified, classified and assessed the relevance of the potential determinants (drivers and barriers) that may explain the use of the cooperation mechanisms in the past, the determinants for the uptake of CSP in Europe and the drivers and to the use of cooperation mechanisms for CSP deployment. The work in WP5 has been focused on the selection of possible CSP case studies suitable for cooperation. In WP6, the work has focused in exploring the market environment for CSP projects in Europe; documenting the current policy state for CSP and renewables cooperation policies in Europe; identifying existing financing structures and opportunities for CSP; providing the geopolitical context for CSP in Europe and analysing existing cooperative initiatives of competing technologies and regions. WP7 worked on the identification of policy pathways for CSP in Europe, showing how these determine the role that CSP can or must play in a decarbonized European power system. WP8’s aim was to undertake all preparatory work necessary for the execution of the distinct different model-based assessments and to incorporate into the modelling system all specifics of assessed CSP technology. WP9 worked on the preparation of the tool that will be used for the sustainability assessment of CSP cooperation projects and started collecting the necessary data.
The project has so far identified all relevant issues that may constitute an obstacle or a driver for the future supply of flexible electricity from CSP plants in Southern to Central and Northern European countries, from now to 2030 and beyond.
At the technology level, we showed that on a global average, CSP costs are decreasing rapidly and supply chains are expanding, driven especially by recent activity in China.
The analysis of drivers and barriers for the use of cooperation highlights the importance of public acceptance barriers and gives a very relevant role to the environmental drivers. The analysis of the drivers and barriers to the market uptake of CSP in Europe revealed that they considerably change per stakeholder type and that there is a need to combine different types of policy instruments. As for the drivers and barriers to the use of cooperation mechanisms for CSP deployment, the results suggest that the most relevant driver is the dispatchability nature of CSP and the most important barrier, the higher costs of CSP compared to other renewables.
The study of the market environment for CSP projects in Europe revealed that currently there is not a business case for CSP imports in Europe but that, in the future, energy policy will play a decisive role.
Indeed, at the political level, the analysis revealed that no country plans a large-scale expansion of CSP, and no country plans to trade renewable power at a significant scale, but, importantly for our research, no country specifies any mentionable plans for balancing the oftentimes large amounts of fluctuating renewables, being this the largest chance for CSP cooperation projects.
As for the socio-political acceptance, results showed that despite the perception of strong benefits from joint projects for CSP by the stakeholders, an impetus from society or important actors in the innovation system is missing to drive the development of these projects. Similarly, when it comes to geopolitical aspects, the literature review and interviews conclude that the technology is almost absent from both the academic and the policy-oriented geopolitical literature and practice as there is a general lack of knowledge of RES cooperation mechanisms and the CSP technology itself among the energy security community.
The project is now working on the identification of a set of opportunities/niches (e.g. suitable cooperating countries, specific CSP project parameters for different types of supply (e.g. baseload or flexible generation), concrete types of CSP projects and associated enabling conditions (legal, regulatory, financial, economic, geopolitical, etc) for regional CSP cooperation in Europe.
By the end of the project, MUSTEC will propose specific policy interventions, including a roadmap and action plans to go from the status quo to the identified enabling conditions for CSP and CSP trade between Southern and Northern EU countries.
The work performed under MUSTEC has served to advocate the CSP technology in Spain and to stimulate the discussion about this technology at the policy level. This has helped that the Spanish government considers CSP as a useful renewable technology for Spain to fulfil its objectives and has included this technology in the Spanish NECP.
At the European level, the knowledge generated within the MUSTEC project has been very appreciated by DG-REGIO, in particular by the Smart Specialization Platform and a close collaboration has been established with the leading region of the solar partnership (Extremadura), which is presenting itself as the region that will host the first cross-border CSP solar project in Europe.
MUSTEC is expected to continue engaged with all of the above mentioned policy makers at the European, National and regional level in order to maximize the expected impacts of our research.
More info: http://www.mustec.eu/.