Concentrating solar power (CSP) refers to the generation of electricity from concentrated direct normal irradiance (DNI) from the sun. Since the concentration ratio used is typically high, it requires a tracking system to redirect the concentrated sunlight to a receiver. The receiver can be comprised of a heat transfer fluid, which can, in turn, be used to drive a heat engine (steam, air, or supercritical carbon dioxide turbine cycle) to generate electricity, as shown in Fig. 1. This overview focuses on thermal energy production from a concentrated solar thermal (CST) system (i.e., neglecting the power block part of Fig ...