SkyFuel gets a CSP Contract in the highly protected Chinese Solar Market;Other Winners First Solar,eSolar yet to begin construction

SkyFuel,the US based Solar Thermal Company has managed to get a contract to set up a 50 MW Solar Thermal Plant in China .The CSP plant which will use SkyFuel’s Proprietary Reflective Film Technology will be a JV between Huludao Ruixinda Industry Co., the State-owned Assets Supervision & Administration Commission (SASAC), and the US-China Economic and Cultural Development Alliance (US-China ECDA). Note SkyFuel does not have any significant commercial power plant running yet.Like  eSolar and Brightsource Energy,it is still in the pre-commercial stage.

Note China’s Solar Market is a highly competitive and protected one with outside solar companies hardly having any presence similar to Japan’s market.First Solar which signed a massive gigawatt contract to build a plant in Ordos has seen only delays as Chinese solar manufacturers opposed the plant.First Solar is still trying to build the plant signing a new JV with one of China’s 5 big utilities.eSolar another CSP company got a contract to build a plant with China but till date construction does not seem to have begun there also.The Chinese government seems mostly interested in high-tech companies (First Solar,eSolar) rather than run of the mill players without any differentiating technology.Even these technology companies have failed to make much headway.Remains to be seen whether SkyFuel Succeeds.

SkyFuel Enters Chinese Solar Market with Parabolic Trough

SkyFuel has signed an agreement for the construction of a 50 MWe concentrating solar power (CSP) plant at a site near Huludao in China.  The plant will use SkyFuel’s advanced, low-cost parabolic trough concentrating solar collector (the SkyTrough®) to supply heat to a standard steam driven power plant.  The agreement was signed with Project Developer Huludao Ruixinda Industry Co., the State-owned Assets Supervision & Administration Commission (SASAC), and the US-China Economic and Cultural Development Alliance (US-China ECDA).  The plant will provide clean, carbon-free electricity to the growing city of Huludao, about 400 km east of Beijing