Shenhua invests in advanced solar energy

China’s largest coal mining company, Shenhua Group, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a Californian developer of utility-scale solar power projects to build 1 GW of solar projects in China.

The MoU was announcement was made in a signing ceremony in Washington DC attended by US Deputy Secretary of Energy, Dr Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall and US Deputy Secretary of Commerce Bruce Andrews.

“As part of Chenhua’s strategic objective to become a world-class clean energy provider, we are interested in developing utility-scale concentrating solar power plants,” said Dr Ling Wen, CEO Shenhua Group. “We look forward to working with SolarReserve in bringing its world-class proprietary technology to China”.

Santa Monica-based SolarReserve proprietary solar thermal energy storage technology “solves the intemittency issues experienced with other renewable energy sources,” the company explained in a press release, allowing the delivery of fully-renewable baseload and dispatchable power.

“SolarReserve is excited about the opportunity to China meet its emissions reductions goals by working with the world’s largest coal company as it expands into large=scale solar thermal,” said Kevin Smith, SolarReserve’s CEO.

“Our 1000 MW partnership with Shenhua is at a scale that will lead to substantially lower costs, while contributing clean and renewable energy to China’s growing power needs. This is just part of China’s target to build 10 000 MW of CSP over the next five years.”

SolarReserve has more than US$1.8 billion of projects in construction and operational worldwide. Its technology uses mirrors to focus sunlight to directly heat molten salt and then stores it, allowing the production of electricity at any time of the day.

Edited by Jonathan Rowland.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcoal.com/coal/09052016/shenhua-invests-in-advanced-solar-energy-2017-239/