Solar Thermal: Down But Not Out

The plummeting price of solar PV delivered what appeared at the time to be a death blow to the solar thermal industry, aka concentrated solar power (CSP).  Here, however, we have the Israeli government unveiling a $23 billion USD plan to increase the share of solar in the power generation to 30% by 2030, when solar power should cover more than 80% of the country’s electricity needs at peak hours.

In parallel, coal-fired generation will be completely phased out. As of May 2020, Israel’s coal-fired power capacity stood at 4.8 GW and solar capacity at 1.4 GW, accounting respectively for 27% and 8% of the total capacity.

In this post, I’ll ignore the geopolitics of the Middle East and Israel’s role in  it, and simply say that these people rank near or at the top of the list of technologically adept nations.  Glad to see this.