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I have, however, seen CSP elaborated as Concentrated (Thermal) Solar Power, which suggests that CPV is a subcategory of PV and CSP a subcategory of TSP.

The ambiguity if that CPV needs to be cooled, and if you use the heat contained in that coolant to some useful purpose, then you have a hybrid CPV/CSP system, even if the CSP element is essentially co-generation.

The built in advantage that PV has in generating electricity is that it generates electricity originally, rather than collecting heat and converting it. The flipside for an application actually required heat of a grade that CSP could deliver would suggest an application for CSP to provide that heat, either directly or upgraded by using it as the above ambient temperature source for a heat pump.

Which clips around the vision of a decade ago of utility scale CSP installations and dispersed PV installations, to utility scale CPV installations and a mix of dispersed CSP and PV installations.

On the residential side of the grid, where a fair incentive would include the reduction in load at the substation serving that residential neighborhood, a mixed CPV/TSP panel that harvests both heat and electric power would seem to offer some potential utility.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Wed Aug 31st, 2011 at 06:56:34 PM EST
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