Areva SA is targeting South Africa and India as the top markets to sell technology that generates electricity from both sunlight and coal.

Mr Anil Srivastava who heads the French company’s renewable energy division said that those locations have ideal conditions of sun and installed capacity of coalfired power plants.

Mr Srivastava said that the technology powers electric turbines with solar thermal equipment when the sun shines and by burning coal when it’s not. He added that “The real challenge is to prioritize markets. The potential of solar is enormous.”

Areva the biggest builder of atomic reactors is expanding into renewable energy and has forecast the global use of solar thermal power to grow by about 30 fold this decade. Earlier this year Areva agreed to purchase Ausra Inc a Mountain View, California based maker of such technology, which uses mirrors to focus sunlight to boil liquids that in turn power turbines. By combining solar power with existing coal plants, investment costs are as much as 60% lower than building a sun driven station from scratch.

(Sourced from Bloomberg)