At least two local companies will begin producing mirrors within the year, and another few are investigating developing new absorber pipes.

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The center is currently investigating replacing heating oil in absorber pipes with water, so the steam turbine could be linked to the solar field directly, bypassing a heat exchanger.

“Conceptually, this seems so simple,” says Zarza, “but that’s not actually the case. Water boils and then turns to steam, and during the transition phase there could be very high temperature differences between the top and bottom of the glass tube, which could cause it to break.” Heating oil, unlike water, remains in liquid form throughout the process. Scientists have tinkered with tubes to develop one that can withstand these temperature changes, and soon a new three-megawatt facility will be built at PSA to test it.

Fernández of Abengoa’s Solúcar, one of the companies participating in the research project , looks forward to replacing heating oil with water. “Oil is expensive,” he says, “and in theory you can go to higher temperatures with water and pressurized steam, because oil has a heat limit. It’s also more efficient if you can do away with the heat exchanger.” A significant challenge facing developers of CSP plants remains cost—in large part because these plants haven’t been built before. Parabolic mirrors must be produced to exacting specifications, and tubes for the oil must be made of two glass layers with a vacuum between them. There’s currently one mirror manufacturer in Europe and two manufacturers of the glass tubes, one in Israel and another in Germany.

“So when there are more manufacturers producing those tubes, and when there’s a larger production in general, you’re going to get more competition and a scale advantage,” says Peter Duprey, director of Acciona Energy North America, a subsidiary of a Spanish company. He adds, “I think this is at a fairly early stage in its evolution, and with more money and more people focusing on this energy alternative, I think you’re going to drive costs down, just like what happened with wind. In the 1980s it was 30 cents per kilowatt-hour; now it’s down to about 7 cents. I think you’ll see the same thing with concentrating solar.”

Both Abengoa and Sener are working with other Spanish companies to jumpstart the production of parabolic mirrors and glass tubes in Spain, to increase production, competition, and local access to the necessary parts. At least two local companies will begin producing mirrors within the year, and another few are investigating developing new absorber pipes. “Electricity costs are going up—and solar thermal costs are going down,” says Zarza. “We think they will meet somewhere in the middle.”



For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).


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