Objective
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
The objective of the DISS project is the development of a new generation of solar thermal power plants with improved parabolic trough collectors and direct steam generation (DSG) in the absorber tubes, thus eliminating the oil acting as a heat transfer medium between the solar field and the conventional power block. At present, more than 350 MW peak power are produced by solar thermal power plants with parabolic trough collectors. Nevertheless, the levelized electricity cost (LEC) of these solar plants is still too high to compete with fossil fuels. Project DISS is aims to increase the efficiency and reduce the cost of solar thermal power plants with parabolic trough collectors.
TECHNICAL APPROACH
The State-of-the-Art of solar thermal power plants using parabolic trough collectors is given by the nine SEGS plants in operation in California. Although increases to the efficiency of these plants has reduced costs from 24 c/kWh to roughly 9 c/kWh under Californian conditions, the levelized electricity cost (LEC) of these plants is still too high. Preliminary simulation results have shown that there exist some improvements that could reduce the LEC by 30%. The technical approach of DISS to develop these improvements is based on the following tasks:
-Design and implementation of a real-scale test facility to investigate the open questions concerning the two-phase flow in the absorber pipes of solar parabolic trough collectors in order to eliminate the synthetic oil used in the SEGS plants.
-Applied research on direct steam generation to investigate thermohydraulic aspects of the two phase flow in parabolic trough collectors
-Study and evaluation of potential improvements for parabolic trough collectors to reduce the cost and to increase the efficiency
EXPECTED ACHIEVEMENTS & EXPLOITATION
The expected outputs of the first phase are:
-Design and implementation of a real-size test facility to evaluate the technical open questions concerning the two-phase flow under real working conditions.
-Design of proper control schemes for the three processes (once-through, recirculation and injection).
-Study and evaluation of potential collector improvements to increase the efficiency and to reduce the cost.
-Implementation and operation of a test loop for the evaluation of possible collector improvements.
The partners of DISS belong to the main sectors involved in a future commercialization of the technology to be developed within this project (i.e. Industries and Electric Utilities), thus guaranteeing a proper exploitation of results in the future.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology environmental engineering energy and fuels renewable energy solar energy solar thermal
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Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
04200 Tabernas
Spain
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.