Concentrated solar power

China's 15th FYP is the single largest new CSP capacity event globally

China has emerged as the single largest force in new CSP through its 15th Five Year Plan (2026-2030). CNNC's Yumen 700 MW hybrid project, including the world's largest operational Fresnel CSP plant (100 MW), entered operation in September 2024. The 15th FYP target list has 4.8 GW of CSP capacity in planning, with a new minimum CSP share requirement: 200 MW CSP per CSP+PV hybrid project, intended to scale to GW-scale CSP projects by 2030. The policy approach is explicitly hybrid CSP+PV to overcome CSP's standalone cost disadvantage - the CSP module provides dispatchability for high-PV grids. Western Chinese provinces (Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang) host most of the new capacity given high direct normal irradiance and available land. The structural read: the next 10 GW of new CSP globally will likely be more Chinese than the previous 10 GW combined.

State of the art (2026)

Concentrated solar power has effectively conceded bulk electricity to PV-plus-battery, whose Moroccan and Gulf bids now undercut CSP roughly five-fold - Noor Midelt I, II and III have all dropped their CSP shares for PV+BESS. The live story is China: the NDRC/NEA "Opinions" of December 2025 target around 15 GW of CSP by 2030, building on 27 grid-connected projects (~1.74 GW) by end-2025 and a 4.8 GW 15th-FYP planning pipeline, almost all as CSP+PV hybrids that supply dispatchability. The second thread is molten-salt thermal storage for industrial process heat (Antora, Rondo, Brenmiller), and a still-nascent solar-fuels tier led by Synhelion, whose DAWN plant in Julich has run since 2024 with a first commercial plant breaking ground in Spain.

Industrial process heat is the durable non-electricity growth tier

The most credible non-China growth opportunity for CSP-adjacent technology is industrial process heat. High-temperature processes (cement at ~1,400-1,500C, glass at ~1,500C, petrochemical cracking at 700-900C, paper and pulp at 300-500C, food and beverage at 100-200C) account for a large share of global industrial CO2 emissions and have very few decarbonisation alternatives. Molten-salt thermal storage decoupled from electricity generation - charging on solar or grid renewable supply, discharging as process heat - is being deployed across these sectors. Approximately 31% of high-temperature industrial processes globally are shifting from fossil fuels to molten-salt-driven thermal systems in the next-decade decarbonisation pathways being adopted by major industrial corporates. Specialist players (1414 Degrees, Antora Energy, Rondo Energy, Polar Night Energy, MGA Thermal) target this segment with thermal-storage architectures that don't necessarily use solar concentration directly but share the molten-salt and refractory-block thermal-storage technology base.

Solar fuels remain early-stage with multi-year commercial path

Concentrated solar can produce process temperatures (1,000-1,500C) high enough to drive thermochemical reactions - solar-thermal hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, and sustainable aviation fuel. Synhelion (Switzerland; partners Cemex, Synhelion-Lufthansa SAF), 247Solar (US), and Heliogen (US; pivoted from electricity-focus to second-generation focus) are the lead operators. None has yet commercialised at meaningful scale. Heliogen terminated its 5 MW demonstration facility after the design phase to focus on Gen 2. Synhelion expects commercial SAF production from its DAWN plant in Germany at small scale through 2026-2027. The technology pathway is real but commercial scale is 5-10 years away; not a near-term thesis driver.