Earlier this month China’s Xinjiang region announced that its second batch of market-based renewable energy projects included no less then twelve projects each consisting of 900 MW of photovoltaics and 100 MW of concentrated solar power (CSP). A thirteenth project is to have 1.35 GW of PV capacity and 150 MW of CSP, with most of these CSP plants having 8-hour thermal energy storage capacity, excepting three of the smaller projects, which are 12-hour. That means Xinjiang is building 1.35 GW / 12 GWh of CSP energy storage by 2024, supporting 12.15 GW of photovoltaics – and it is not the only province fostering the technology within China. The provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, and Jilin had already announced a combined…