China National Energy Administration (NEA) recently issued a notice on organizing the Construction of Concentrated Solar Power Demonstration Projects. The notice states that Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is an important new technology in solar energy utilization. NEA decided to arrange the construction of a batch of CSP demonstration projects so as to develop key technological equipments, form a complete industrial chain, and build the system integration capability. Those CSP demonstration projects will adopt mainly the parabolic trough and solar tower technologies. Other system technology applications can also be submitted.
The demonstration has two objectives. One is to expand the industrial scale of CSP in China. Through the demonstration projects, China domestic solar thermal equipment manufacturing industry chain is expected to be formed. Those supported demonstration plants should reach a commercial scale, with an installation capacity no less than 50MW. And the other is to train system integrators. Through the construction of the demonstration projects, a number of system integrators with comprehensive capacity will be fostered to meet the needs of the subsequent CSP development in China.
The Notice clarifies the detailed requirements on the demonstration projects:
(I)Resource conditions and technical requirements: The DNI at the construction sites should be no less than 1600kWh/m2/y. The technological parameters of the main sub-systems of the demonstration projects should reach the international advanced level and the usage of more advanced technology and domestic industrial manufactured equipments are encouraged. In principle, the technological requirements should be in line with those stipulated in the Technological Specifications for CSP Demonstration Projects (Trial Version) issued along with this Notice.
(II)Preparation requirements on implementation plan of the demonstration project. The implementation plan should include technological and engineering solutions, as well as economic investment calculation report. The technological and engineering solutions should specify the sources of the equipments, technological partners, system integration solutions, etc. Supportive documents for the project and fund-raising documents are required. The economic investment calculation report should list the investment cost structure of each engineering parts so as to collect and compare all applied projects to estimate the project cost one by one to provide reference for electricity price calculation. If the project application has an obviously high investment, the application will not be considered. The applications with abnormal errors and unstandardized estimates are not qualified for demonstration.
(III)Boundary conditions for economic analysis. The project capital should take up no less than 20% of the total investment; the interest of the project loan is calculated with the real interest rate for the project owner. The construction period is taken as 2 years, and the operation period of the plant is set as 25 years. The IRR of the project capital may refer to the average return rate of the new energy generation projects. The VAT rate is temporarily calculated as 17% during the 25-year operation period.
(IV)To reduce duplication and waste, the project quantity with the same technological sources and types will be limited. The number of applied projects is stipulated as follows: if one project owner constructs more than one project in a province (autonomous region or municipality), the projects should adopt a different technical routes. One corporate can declare the projects in different provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities), but the total number is not more than three and the same technology type and technical sources are no more than two.
The NEA also specified how to apply for the CSP demonstration projects:
(I)Demonstration projects application. The administrative energy departments in each province (autonomous region or municipality) level organizes the implementation plan preparation of CSP demonstration project and carries out a preliminary project review and application-related work. The project’s technological and engineering solutions and the investment economy estimation report should be prepared and submitted separately. The demonstration project application report shall be submitted to the New Energy Division of the NEA by the end of this October.
(II)Demonstration project review. The NEA will organize experts to review the advancement of the technological solution, equipment localization rate, the reasonability of economic indicators, the preparatory work of the project, as well as conditions for starting the construction in the near future. Projects that are approved will be listed as candidate projects.
(III)The feed-in tariff of the demonstration projects. The NEA will review the investment economic calculation report. A feed-in tariff will be given after general comparison. If its investment economy estimation in the report is obviously unreasonable, the project will be removed from the list of candidate projects.
(IV)Demonstration project confirmation.The NEA will take into consideration the economy,equipment localization rate,and technological advancement to prioritize the projects in the list and choose demonstration projects.
(V)Demonstration project construction. The administrative departments of energy at each province (autonomous region or municipality) level will lead the construction of demonstration projects. After completion, the project owner should promptly apply to the provincial energy authority for final acceptance. The provincial energy authority will examine the project in conjunction with the agency assigned by the National Energy Administration. After accepting the project, it will organize the preparation of project acceptance report, and report to the National Energy Administration.
Technological Specifications for CSP Demonstration Projects (Trial Version) and Requirements for CSP Demonstration Project Implementation Plan Compiling were issued along with the Notice.
