Cost comparison of solar power plant technologies

The comparison of solar collector costs and efficiencies for power plant solar collectors can be summerized in the following table. For thermal technologies, the turbine/generator cost is not included.

Note.

1. The overall efficiency is with respect to the direct normal insulation, so the cosine effect is taken into account.
2. The higher efficiency of redressable troughs results mainly from the fact that they can be installed with optimally inclined orientation. See here for more details.
3. No reliable data about the cost of CLFR can be found. So what is included in the table is a wide guess.
4. A stronger seasonal variation means less winter production, which means more reliance on other energy sources to balance the load. This can be improved by changing the orientation of the collectors, but doing so reduces the overall efficiency.