Solar thermal power plants (CSP) with integrated thermal energy storage will provide competitive dispatchable electricity for evening peaks and base load power (in combination with PV) as well as high-temperature process heat in sunbelt countries if further efficiency improvements can be achieved through higher operation temperatures in advanced power cycles enabling further cost reduction.

The Subtopic CSP is based “on the world’s most complete and diverse CSP research infrastructure”, in combination with comprehensive numerical tools and optical measurement devices as a basis for fully autonomous operation concepts for CSP system and material qualification methods for advanced heat transfer media and structural materials on a relevant scale. New competences in the field of liquid metals have been transferred successfully from the nuclear application to be used as advanced heat-transfer media for CSP systems.