RES has already increased their share from 26% of total power capacity in 2005 to 47% in 2017. By 2017, the total RES capacity installed in the EU was 455 GW, 169 GW was in wind and 107 GW in PV, both accounting for 29.5% of the EU power mix.
This has three concomitant effects:
[1] Source: http://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.4949251
[1] System value (SV) is defined as the net benefit arising from the addition of a given power generation technology, a look beyond costs/LCOE.
[2] http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/Next_Generation_Windand_Solar_PowerFrom_Cost_to_ValueFull_Report.pdf
Spain: http://www.solarpaces.org/wp-content/uploads/protermo_solar_21x21_inglesc.pdf
There are 3 types of drivers for going into STE:
the effects of which appear on different time scales.
This evolution will be observed also for the most recent projects in Morocco and South Africa
Some of the soft cost categories (e.g. environmental assessment of large plant development) are applicable to both PV and CSP. However, overall CSP costs remain more dominated by hard costs than are PV installations.
[1] Link to this report: http://www.irena.org/documentdownloads/publications/irena_rethinking_energy_2017.pdf
According to ESTELA, this cost reduction trend necessarily requires a minimum volume of projects, which has been estimated at some 30 GW worldwide by 2025. The first threshold of 10-12 €/kWh will be achieved through lower cost solar collectors and construction techniques; while 8-10 €/kWh will be the result of reaching higher temperature system and mass production. Central receiver plants can certainly be supportive to this process.
The recent STE deployment in active markets, such as Morocco, Chile and South Africa, showed in the last 2 years how fast the STE costs can be reduced in terms of maturity and financial support: