Abengoa Solar has marked a milestone in the development of solar power tower technology with the start of commercial operation of a key project in Spain.
The Spanish firm says that it has successfully completed a three-day production and operational testing period at the PS20 plant near Seville, which has a capacity of 20 MW. The plant is the largest solar power tower plant in the world.
PS20 represents an advance in the design of PS10, the first solar power tower plant in the world to generate electricity commercially. The fact that it surpassed the predicted power output during the three-day testing period validates its design, says Abengoa.
“Generating more power during production testing than the design output is indeed a significant milestone,” said Santiago Seage, CEO of Abengoa Solar. “The technological breakthroughs we have achieved, coupled with our cumulative expertise, have enabled us to take a qualitative leap forward in our power tower technology.”
The start-up of PS20 comes at a time of growing interest in concentrating solar power (CSP) technologies such as solar power towers. Torresol Energy – a joint venture between Spain’s Sener and Masdar of the UAE – is targeting development of over 300 MW of CSP capacity by the end of 2010, while Siemens recently staked a claim in the market through the purchase of a minority stake in Italy’s Archimede Solar Energy.
The market for solar thermal plants will show double-digit growth rates over the next few years and reach a volume of over EUR10 billion by 2015, says Siemens.
PS20 is double the capacity of PS10 and includes a number of technological improvements such as a more efficient receiver, improvements in the control and operational systems and a better thermal energy storage system. It will produce enough energy to supply 10 000 homes.
Both plants are located at Abengoa’s Solúcar Platform. PS20 consists of a solar field made up of 1255 mirrored heliostats, each with a surface area of 120 m2. The heliostats reflect solar radiation onto a central receiver located at the top of a 162 m-high tower. The radiation is transferred to a superheated fluid that is used to raise steam for a steam turbine-generator.
Last year Abengoa announced plans to construct two 50 MW CSP plants in Andalucia, Spain. The two plants – Helioenergy 1 and 2 – will use parabolic trough technology and will be constructed near the city of Ecija at a cost of EUR500 million.
The firm is also developing a 280 MW parabolic trough plant in Arizona, USA. Trough systems are considered to be the most mature of the CSP technologies.