Concentrated solar power (CSP) plants provide the means to generate dispatchable, renewable electricity in high direct normal incidence (DNI) locations around the world. Due to the strong inverse correlation between DNI resources and freshwater resources, most of the best potential CSP sites also lack sufficient freshwater resources. Thus, an attractive natural symbiotic pathway exists for developing CSP plants integrated with desalination (D) technology, particularly for sites in proximity to large bodies of salty water (e.g., seawater or saline groundwater). As such, this review critically explores the potential for five CSP-D designs proposed in the literature. Overall, this critical review compares and contrasts the major integration designs on the basis of common merits and limitations. A key finding of this review is that the choice of the most feasible CSP desalination integration is not a straightforward process. It was found that the details surrounding where energy extraction takes place from the CSP cycle can make a significant impact on the feasibility of the plant. In general, waste heat coupling and electrical-driven reverse osmosis integration were found to provide the best technical and economical results. However, no clear-cut ‘winning’ design could be concluded from this review. In fact, the water and energy losses of the condenser were found to significantly shift the results between the two designs. As such, we hope that this review will help guide researchers and engineers towards CSP-D development which has the highest chance of commercial uptake.

集中式太阳能发电厂（CSP）提供了在世界各地的高直接法向发生率（DNI）位置产生可调度的可再生电力的方法。由于DNI资源与淡水资源之间存在强烈的逆相关性，因此大多数潜在的CSP站点也缺乏足够的淡水资源。因此，存在着一种有吸引力的天然共生途径，用于开发结合了脱盐（D）技术的CSP植物，尤其是在靠近大量咸水（例如海水或盐水）的地点。因此，本篇评论主要探讨了文献中提出的五种CSP-D设计的潜力。总的来说，这项重要的评论根据共同的优点和局限性对主要的集成设计进行了比较和对比。这次审查的一个关键发现是，选择最可行的CSP海水淡化集成并不是一个简单的过程。已经发现，从CSP循环中提取能量的位置周围的细节可能对电厂的可行性产生重大影响。通常，发现废热耦合和电驱动的反渗透集成可提供最佳的技术和经济效果。但是，本次审查无法得出明确的“制胜”设计。实际上，发现冷凝器的水和能量损失会在两种设计之间显着改变结果。因此，我们希望这篇评论能够帮助指导研究人员和工程师进行CSP-D开发，因为CSP-D开发具有最大的商业应用机会。