太阳能热发电可能在美国市场找到突破口，但这必须以开发人商成功削减成本击退了来自光伏太阳能系统的竞争并吸引发展可再生能源电厂所需巨额资金为前提。 虽然热能发电新技术已被视为美国摆脱对化石燃料依赖的解决方案而备受吹捧，但迄今仍由于建设电站成本过高而发展步履维艰。
像BrightSource能源和eSolar这种谷歌搜索中名列前茅的巨头公司，以及西班牙的Abengoa太阳能公司等，他们有先进的技术，利用太阳光线加热蒸汽推动发电机，进行发电。 第一太阳能与尚德等传统光伏组件公司则提出利用光伏系统直接将阳光转换成电能，占据了太阳能市场的最大份额。
太阳热能的支持者已经表示，将太阳热能发电可能在美建设大型发电项目，抢占市场份额，但光伏电池板价格大幅下降再次掀起了市场对光伏发电的巨大兴趣，成为热能发电技术的有力挑战者。
太阳热能只有达到一定规模时才会经济适用，项目成本高达数亿美元。相较之，光伏系统可分布安装，分散融资。此外， 光伏发电适用的群体更为广泛，可在超大范围，也适合小范围小规模使用。一兆瓦（100万瓦）电力已足够800个美国家庭使用。
Solar thermal power could be close to a breakthrough in the U.S. market, but only if developers can shave costs to beat back competition from photovoltaic solar systems and attract the huge sums needed to finance the renewable energy plants.
While the new technology has been touted as a solution toward moving the United States away from its dependence on fossil fuels, it has so far stumbled because of the high price tag for the massive plants.
Solar thermal companies like BrightSource Energy and eSolar, both of which count search giant Google among their investors, and Spain's Abengoa Solar, have technology that concentrates the sun's rays to heat water into steam and drive a generator.Traditional photovoltaic modules made by companies like First Solar and Suntech directly convert sunlight into electricity, and make up the largest chunk of the solar market.
Backers of solar thermal have said it would claim the lion's share of large-scale projects in the United States, but a sharp drop in photovoltaic panel prices has drawn much of the market's interest to that technology.
Solar thermal is economical only on a large scale, lifting total project costs into hundreds of millions of dollars, while PV systems can be built piecemeal in smaller steps that are easier to finance.
PV, however, can be used for a wide range of applications, from very large to very small. One megawatt (1 million watts) is enough to power about 800 U.S. homes.
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