Abstract
Decreasing the levelized cost of renewable energy and improving the stability of power systems are the key requirements for realizing the sustainable growth of power production capacity. Concentrating solar power (CSP) technology with thermal energy storage can overcome the intermittent and unstable nature of solar energy, and its development is of great significance for the sustainable development of human society. In this paper, topic discovery and clustering were studied using bibliometric, social network analysis and information visualization technology based on the Web of Science database (SCI-Expanded) and the incoPat global patent database. The technology searched for papers and patents related to CSP technology to reveal the development trends of CSP technology and provide the references for related technical layout and hot spot tracking. The results show that the global output of CSP technology papers has continued to grow steadily, whereas the number of patent applications showed a significant downtrend. CSP technology, which is at the initial stage of commercialization, still needs technological breakthroughs. Technological innovation that integrates thermal engineering, control engineering, physics, chemistry, materials, and other disciplines may become an effective path for CSP technology development in the future. CSP technology research shows increasing research and development trends in high-temperature receivers, phase-change thermal energy storage, the overall performance of thermal power generation systems, and a development trend from a single technology to multi-energy complementary systems.