Suhas Bannur

In the race to achieve India’s National Solar Mission (NSM) targets, one important solar technology is slowly disappearing. Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), a solar thermal-based technology for power generation, which showed considerable technical potential, is being sidelined. It is losing out due to economics compared to its rival, solar photovoltaics (PV).

For the last couple of years, photovoltaics (PV) has been the preferred choice of technology for harnessing solar energy against Concentrated Solar Power (CSP). The major issue bogging down CSP is that it is not economical as compared to PV. Emerging technologies such as s-CO2 and Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) could be the saviour for CSP going forward. To understand the techno-economics of a solar-ORC system, CSTEP and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), under SERIIUS project, worked together in assessing a low-temperature solar ORC system for off-grid applications.