Solar power generation

Abstract

Solar energy supplies increasing shares of global energy demand. As a renewable source of energy, it will play a major role in decarbonizing electricity supply. This chapter provides an overview on the solar sector from an economic perspective. It describes the technical characteristics of photovoltaic and concentrated solar power and explains how these affect the economic competitiveness of solar energy. The authors highlight trends in the solar sector and elaborate on how this intermittent source of energy can be integrated into a power system. They conclude with a discussion on how renewable energy support schemes can be designed to foster the deployment of solar power by accounting for the specific characteristics of solar power.