  With the increasing proportion of variable renewable energy which owns
fluctuation characteristics and the promotion of the Clean Heating policy, the
seasonal energy imbalance of the system has been more and more challenging.
There is a lack of effective means to mitigate this challenge under the
background of gradual compression of the traditional thermal unit construction.
Concentrating solar power (CSP) is a promising technology to replace thermal
units by integrating emergency boilers to cope with extreme weather, and can
meet long-time energy balance as a seasonal peak regulation source. In this
paper, we propose a long-term high-resolution expansion planning model of the
energy system under high renewable penetration which integrates CSP technology
for seasonal energy balance. With the projection to 2050, by taking the energy
system in Xinjiang province which is a typical area of the Clean Heating
project with rich irradiance as a case study, it shows that the optimal
deployment of CSP and electric boiler (EB) can reduce the cost, peak-valley
difference of net load and renewable curtailment by 8.73%, 19.72% and 58.24%
respectively at 65% renewable penetration compared to the base scenario.
