The U.S. Department of energy recently announced a $62 million investment in research and development of concentrating solar power, another major technology in the solar industry, to overcome key problems such as the stability, repairability and energy storage of solar power grids, MIT Technology Review reported.

At present, solar power plants are mainly based on two technologies to convert solar energy into electric energy: one is photovoltaic power generation technology, which needs to be equipped with expensive battery pack or external energy storage technology, and can only operate and supply power when the sun is high; The second is concentrating solar power generation technology, which focuses the sunlight through the lens, and uses the obtained energy to convert the water into steam to drive the steam turbine to run. The solar energy is partially converted into heat energy and stored in the molten salt tank equipped with the system, which can continuously supply power at night or rainy days.

In 2011, in order to increase the competitiveness of solar power generation, the U.S. Department of energy proposed the "solar radiation plan", hoping to reduce the unit price of solar energy per watt hour from $4 to $1 in 2020. Therefore, the Ministry of energy and public and private enterprises focus on the research and development of photovoltaic power generation technology which is easier to achieve, and achieve the expected goal ahead of schedule at the beginning of this year. Concentrating power generation technology has been ignored for a long time because of its higher cost and greater technical difficulty.

The U.S. Department of Energy announced a research shift this time, hoping to focus on concentrating solar technology that can improve the stability and sustainability of the solar power grid after the unit price of solar energy has achieved the expected goal. Although some people doubt that this may be the trump government's cover for "suppressing the threat of fast-growing photovoltaic power generation to fossil fuels", many energy experts expressed their support for this technology shift, believing that concentrating power generation has more advantages in storing solar energy than photovoltaic power generation.

David Victor, an energy policy researcher at the University of California, San Diego, said: "at present, there are problems of over investment in photovoltaic power generation and insufficient investment in concentrating power generation. The new plan of the Department of energy will set off a wave of research and development of concentrating solar energy." David Hart, director of the center for science, technology and innovation policy at George Mason University, also believes that photovoltaic power generation technology is mature, and the problem to be solved is no longer the technical level, but how to expand the scale, which can be solved by these private enterprises. Government departments can spend more money to develop immature concentrating power generation technology to solve the deep-seated problems of solar energy development.