Suntrough Goes Small With Solar Thermal in Developing Nations

kristyCommunity Development Solutions, Greentech

An article from GreenTech Solar

Suntrough Goes Small With Solar Thermal in Developing Nations

Five- to ten-megawatt CSP plants, pre-assembled and containerized might drive down the cost of this technology.
Suntrough is a solar thermal plant builder and developer that believes smaller might be better.

Contrast that with BrightSource Energy, the VC-funded concentrating solar power (CSP) firm that just registered for an IPO. BrightSource is doing things on an enormous scale — hundreds and thousands of megawatts, billions of dollars, tens of thousands of acres and mirrors — and dealing with big political and environmental forces that are both supporting and opposing the development effort.

Suntrough Energy is taking a different route.

The CEO of Suntrough, Asif Ansari, knows a bit about solar and solar thermal. Ansari was founder and former CEO of eSolar — one of the players in solar thermal energy. According to Ansari, “Solar thermal is not about technology; it’s about financial execution.

Suntrough is providing turnkey power plants based on trough technology at a relatively small five- to ten-megawatt scale. The plants are meant to be deployed as a hybrid, working in tandem with a biomass plant and producing baseload power with initial applications in India, Africa, and the Middle East.

As Greentech Media’s solar researchers have reported, CSP is coming in at a high price — higher than PV.

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