This is based on technical market potential, renewable energy support, ease of financing, national CSP targets and other industry and political factors, ranked South Africa with the highest score.

Commentators highlighted the potential that South Africa has to develop CSP due to its excellent solar resources which can reach over 2800 kWh/m2/annum, its strong manufacturing industry and land availability. All these factors combined with the most recent commitment shown by the government towards concentrated solar power explain why South Africa is ranked number one in the CSP Today 2014 Markets Scorecard above Saudi Arabia and Morocco.

Analysts emphasize on the drop of R 1 /kWh that concentrated solar power has experienced between the first and the last window. The prices for the two 100MW CSP projects, Xina Solar One and Karoshoek, dropped from R 2.69/kWh in the first window to R 1.65/kWh. The latest round made it possible for CSP projects to receive a 270% premium on the base price if they were able to dispatch energy during peak demand hours.

This incentive also called Time of Day tariff (TOD) is seen by analysts as a major push by the South African government to support CSP. Wikus van Niekerk, Director of the Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies (CRSES) at Stellenbosch University said that “the new TOD tariff incentive is exactly what the CSP projects in South Africa needed in order to demonstrate the real value of the electricity that CSP can generate”. Prices are gradually decreasing but there’s still a big margin for concentrated solar power to lower the costs.

CSP Today have announced this week that the Stellenbosch University, will be joined at CSP Today South Africa 2014 (8-9 April, Cape Town) by leading developer ACWA Power, EPC Cobra Energy and national utility ESKOM amongst others to reduce CSP costs and realise the CSP potential highlighted in the market scorecard.
For more information on CSP Today South Africa 2014 please visit: http://goo.gl/YlSjZY

About CSP Today
CSP Today is the reference point for CSP professionals and a cornerstone for communications within the industry. We provide business intelligence to the industry with focused news, events, reports, updates and information for the Concentrated Solar Thermal Power industry in markets such as India, South Africa, Spain, USA, Chile and the MENA region.