Concentrated Solar Thermal Power - Geothermal Hybrid Plant Projects Spring to Life (CSP Today)
Several projects are currently underway in the United States to assess the feasibility of combining Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) and geothermal energy together in hybrid power plants. So, what do these projects entail? And what are the prospects for the future development of such plants?
Washington-based Rappaport Energy Consulting (REC) has recently secured $149,900 of DOE funding for a project to study the differential data from retrofitting a concentrated solar thermal array to the existing geothermal electrical generation system currently installed at the Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT) in Klamath Falls Oregon.
In another development, Oregon-based Utility Energy Forum (UEF) and PacifiCorp have recently released a joint concept paper outlining the feasibility of a hybrid geothermal/CSP solar plant at the PacifiCorp-run Blundell geothermal power plant at Beaver County, Utah.
Elsewhere, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is collaborating with Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in a joint project aimed at examining the viability of using heat provided by solar thermal collectors to augment the energy input to a binary power plant.
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