Weekly Intelligence Brief
Weekly Intelligence Brief: January 25 - February 01
1 February 2010
This week’s CSP Today news round up includes: Tessera Solar & Stirling Energy Systems; Solar Millennium; Archimede Solar Energy; Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group; and Abener.
First commercial‐scale SunCatcher plant unveiled
Independent power company Tessera Solar and Stirling Energy Systems (SES) have announced that Dish Stirling solar power is now ready for commercial deployment anywhere in the world.
The technology is now being showcased at the Maricopa Solar plant, only four months after breaking ground.
This is the first commercial project for the SunCatcher CSP technology designed and manufactured by SES. Maricopa Solar consists of 60 SunCatcher dishes.
SunCatcher is a 25‐kilowatt solar power system that uses a 38‐foot, mirrored parabolic dish combined with an automatic tracking system to collect and focus the sun’s energy onto a Stirling engine.
According to the company, the system entails the lowest water use of any thermal electric generating technology. Additional advantages of the system include minimal grading and trenching requirements, no excavation requirement for foundations, and the highest sun-to-grid efficiency of any solar generating technology.
According to Tessera Solar, the cumulative result will be to minimise both cost and land use. Overall, the company is counting on the fact that SunCatcher’s near-zero water requirement, scalable modularity and terrain flexibility provide compelling advantage.
High‐volume manufacturing of the SunCatcher begins in Summer 2010 and Tessera Solar breaks ground on utility‐scale projects late this year in California and Texas.
Imperial Valley is a 750 MW project with the first 300 MW contracted under a power purchase agreement with San Diego Gas & Electric near El Centro, California; Calico is a 850 MW project with Southern California Edison near Barstow, California; and Western Ranch is a 27 MW project with CPS Energy in West Texas.
Solar Millennium to test efficacy of its new collector
CSP technology developer, Solar Millennium, has begun testing Flagsol’s latest collector technology, HelioTrough. The technology is now operational at a commercial parabolic trough power plant in California.
While precise details regarding the plant have yet to be disclosed, the company has initiated comparative testing of its different collector generations.
The new collector has been integrated at the same power plant as its predecessor Skal-ET. The demonstration rig consists of two rows of collectors with a total length of 800 meters.
Solar Millennium intends to measure the efficiency of the new collector in commercial operation and under real conditions.
HelioTrough has been developed by Solar Millennium’s technology subsidiary Flagsol in Cologne. The new collector was worked upon with the twin objective of simplifying the design and at the same time increasing its precision. The HelioTrough collector is constructed with entirely new geometry.
Prior to installation at the Californian power plant, the new collector was first tested in a factory hall in the Ruhr area to test the novel assembly concept and verify the geometric precision.
The early phases of the research and development project were promoted by the German Federal Environment Ministry, whereas the demonstration project in California is supported by the US Department of Energy.
The existing collector, Skal-ET, too, was developed by Flagsol. It has been used for both the Spanish Andasol power plants and the Egyptian plant near Kuraymat.
Archimede Solar Energy starts work on new receiver production plant
Archimede Solar Energy has initiated construction work for its new receiver production facility in the Italian town of Massa Martana.
The company, a joint venture between Angelantoni Industrie and Siemens Energy, plans to commence operations in 2011.
The facility will have an annual production capacity of approximately 75,000 solar receivers. The plant’s capacity will be increased to 140,000 tubes per year. These tubes can reach a temperature of up to 550° Celsius. The solar receivers produced in this receiver plant use molten salt as heat transfer medium instead of thermo oil.
René Umlauft, CEO of Siemens’ renewable energy division, mentioned that the company can offer about 70 percent of the components of a solar thermal power plant as well as EPC solutions.
He added that in the future, Siemens would be in a position to offer two receiver technologies using either thermo oil or molten salt depending on customer requirements.
Siemens acquired a 28 percent stake in the Italian solar company Archimede Solar Energy in March 2009. After this strategic alliance, it acquired Israeli company Solel Solar Systems.
B&W PGG’s receiver performs as per expectations
Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group (B&W PGG) has expressed satisfaction over the performance of its solar receiver’s initial operations at eSolar’s Sierra SunTower commercial plant in southern California.
B&W designed, developed and manufactured a tower-mounted steam generation receiver for eSolar’s 5 MW solar thermal power plant in the Antelope Valley region. The full-scale demonstration solar receiver was delivered to eSolar in April last year.
The B&W solar receiver sits atop a tower at eSolar’s facility, which uses small, flat mirrors which track the sun with high precision and reflect the sun’s heat to B&W's receiver, which boils water to create steam. This steam powers a traditional turbine and generator.
eSolar has been evaluating the performance of the tower-mounted receiver, which is capable of producing enough steam to generate 2.5 MW of electricity at the Sierra SunTower facility.
According to eSolar, the receiver has already reached design temperature and pressure, while also starting up and achieving maximum steam flow quickly.
Abener to develop a project in Almeria
The Centre for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research (CIEMAT) has chosen Abener for a project to create a molten salt storage in the parabolic trough collectors and gas chambers in the experimental solar plant of the Solar Platform in Almeria (PSA).
The project has an estimated investment of €3 million (US$4mn; £2.6mn). The Solar Platform in Almeria is located in the town of Tabernas, which is 40 kilometres from Almeria’s capital city.
The main objective of this project is to increase the capacity of the plant to store thermosolar energy, as well as allowing the exchange of energy between gas and nitrate salts.
The technology is based on the use of two salt tanks to store the heat. During the loading cycle, the heat from the salt is exchanged with the fluid coming from the solar field, and in doing so it is stored in the warm tank.
During the discharging cycle, the system operates in the opposite direction, heating the carrier fluid, which will generate steam so the turbine comes into operation, hence producing electricity.
The advantage of this type of system is that the melted salts keep warm in an efficient way, increasing the water evaporation cycles and enabling the production of electricity from the turbines after sunset.
