The development of thermal storage is a relatively new addition to solar thermal electric technology, but it has been installed and tested well past the "pilot plant" scale, and full-scale plants incorporating it are being constructed.
And no, I am not involved directly in the technology, but I've studied WAY more than "reading a few articles" over the last thirty years. But then, I doubt that you have any better experience base.
Actually I do but that is neither here nor there. I am not saying that this isn’t going to help or isn’t a worthy effort to keep exploring and working on. To the contrary I believe that we should be pursuing all sorts of different technologies. Right now the max output of any of the installed CSPs is 350 MW. That is a nice sized plant. It is in Mohave where there is lots of land and lots of sun.
A lot of the smaller plants help in areas where there is no other infrastructure. That’’s not a bad thing. I was addressing my remarks to the Canadian ( and Americans) who think that this is the be all and end all. There are problems that must be overcome with the technology but I believe that is doable.
There are many ongoing efforts to research and develop many new ideas. There is less effort to develop things such as coal ( since the current administration wants to close basically all coal down) and nuclear which also give us independence from the Middle East. Europe learned this long ago.