Solar thermal energy, especially concentrated solar power (CSP), represents an increasingly attractive renewable energy source. However, one of the key factors that determine the development of this technology is the integration of efficient and cost effective thermal energy storage (TES) systems, so as to overcome CSP's intermittent character and to be more economically competitive. This paper presents a review on thermal energy storage. Solar thermal energy, especially concentrated solar power (CSP), represents an increasingly attractive renewable energy source. However, one of the key factors that determine the development of this technology is the integration of efficient and cost effective thermal energy storage (TES) systems, so as to overcome CSP's intermittent character and to be more economically competitive. This paper presents a review on thermal energy storage systems installed in CSP plants. Various aspects are discussed including the state-of-the-art on CSP plants all over the world and the trend of development, different technologies of TES systems for high temperature applications (200–1000°C) with a focus on thermochemical heat storage, and storage concepts for their integration in CSP plants.TES systems are necessary options for more than 70% of new CSP plants. Sensible heat storage technology is the most used in CSP plants in operation, for their reliability, low cost, easy to implement and large experimental feedback available. Latent and thermochemical storage technologies have much higher energy density thus may have a bright foreground. New concepts for TES integration are also proposed, especially coupled technology for higher operating temperature and cascade TES of modularized storage units for intelligent temperature control.CLFRCompact Linear Fresnel collectorCRSCentral Receiver SystemCSPConcentrated solar powerCSTConcentrated solar thermoelectricDNIDirect Normal IrradianceDSGConcentrated solar power (CSP)Thermal energy storage (TES)IntegrationThermochemicalThe use of renewable energy is essential today to decrease both the consumption of fossil resources and the production of carbon dioxide partly responsible for the greenhouse gas effect,. Among every renewable resources (e.g., wind, ocean, geothermal and solar), solar energy is showing encouraging promises due to the great quantities of solar irradiation flux arriving on earth.Among various solar energy technologies, concentrated solar power (CSP) is particularly attractive due to its advantages in terms of high efficiency, low operating cost and good scale-up potential,. Solar energy is converted into electricity by means of a CSP plant composed of four main elements: a concentrator, a high temperature solar receiver, a fluid transport system and a power generation bloc (e.g., Rankine cycle, Stirling cycle). It is estimated by IEA that the CSP will contribute up to 11% of the global electricity production in year 2050.This section presents a literature survey on almost all CSP plants worldwide, including those already in operation, under construction or planned project. First, a large part of the data have been collected from the websites “cspworld.org” and “globalenergyobservatory.org”. Then a detailed research has also been made for each identified CSP plant on its proper website or related documents so as to find additional information. A statistical analysis of these data will show the general trends of CSP technologies such as the increasing plants' average power or the necessity of TES systems for economic competitiveness.To better illustrate the historical development, the surveyed CSP plants are divided into five groups: (i) 19 plants in operation with production began before year 2000 (named “before 2000” hereafter); (ii) 24 plants in operation with production started between year 2000 and 2010 (named “2000 to 2010”); (iii) 85 plants in operation with production began after 2010 (named “after 2010”); (iv) 35 plants now under construction and (v) 74 planned plants. The total number of samples thus reaches 237 CSP plants. Detailed data for every plant are provided in Table 1, Table 2, Table 3 of the Data-in-Brief article.Table 2. Number of samples for each item of analysis.
