The new SolarPACES-CSTA database of all current CSP in China map enables a visualization of the locations of all 43 of China’s concentrated solar power (CSP) projects. In China, CSP always includes thermal energy storage (TES). The link is under the WORLDWIDE CSP tab shown above.
Initially the CSP+TES is listed by province and date, and the full map is opened from there.
There are currently 26 CSP projects online and 17 under construction as of 2026, for 43 total. At least another seven and counting are out to bid, which will be added once construction begins.
The data comes from the China Solar Thermal Alliance (CSTA) and NREL (now NLR) along with CSP news from other sources like China’s CSP developers or suppliers, ESPlaza and PV Magazine.
The entries separate the five early pilot projects, online by 2019, the online dates of the subsequent commercial projects, and the CSP projects currently under construction as of 2026.
For each CSP project, the map includes its developer, how many hours of thermal energy storage (TES) each has, its map coordinates, the name of each big renewable energy park that CSP projects are increasingly now located within, how many megawatts of colocated PV or wind is included, and where we have one, a news item on that project’s progress or performance. For older projects, we include a link to the NREL database that tracked CSP projects globally.
Under Chinese policy, CSP is utilized as an economical long duration (6 to 12 hours) storage component in large renewable parks with up to 1 GW of intermittent renewables, PV and wind. So we list it as CSP+TES.
Its thermal energy storage (TES) provides the rolling reserves and other stabilizing grid benefits of the older coal thermal plants, but without the pollution. Batteries are typically also deployed for instant-on short-term (2-4 hours) storage.
Many of these new big renewable parks are connected to High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) lines for very long distance transmission to China’s population centers far from the high desert areas where the solar energy is harvested.
