The potential of concentrated solar power (CSP) in the GCC countries

This work has estimated the technical potentials (those which in principal could be accessed for power generation by the present state of the art technology) and the economic potentials (those with sufficiently high performance indictor that will allow new plants in the medium and long term to become competitive with other renewable and conventional power source, considering their potential technical development and economies). For Bahrain, the technical potential of CSP is 36 TWh/yr and the Economic is 33 TWh/yr; for Saudi Arabia 125260 TWh/yr and 124560 TWh/yr; for UAE 5143 TWh/yr and 5 100 TWh/yr; for Qatar 823 TWh/yr and 792 TWh/yr; for Kuwait 1525TWh/yr and 1525 TWh/yr and for Oman 20611 TWh/yr and 19404 TWh/yr, respectively. Since these states have long coast (total of 2200 km out of 3300 km; Iran share is 31 % and Iraq is 1.7 %) then the costal potentia CSP was estimated so that it can meet the water demand. It is 21 TWh/y in Bahrain, 2055 TWh/y in Saudi Arabia, 538 TWh/y in UAE, 324 TWh/y in Qatar, 134 TWh/y in Kuwait and 497 TWh/y in Oman. Desalination, that is driven by oil and natural gas had made the annual per capita water consumption in the GCC in year 2000 had become reasonable. The power for desalination in TWh/y from CSP in 2050 was found to be 1 TWh/y in Bahrain, 99 TWh/y in Saudi Arabia, 8 TWh/y in UAE, 1 TWh/y in Qatar, 2.2 TWh/y in Kuwait and 6 TWh/y in Oman. The cost of CSP will be reduced from the current 8 cent/kWh to 6 cent/kWh in 2010 to 5 cent/kWh in 2020 and 2050.