CORDIS provides links to public deliverables and publications of HORIZON projects.
Links to deliverables and publications from FP7 projects, as well as links to some specific result types such as dataset and software, are dynamically retrieved from OpenAIRE .
Deliverables
The aim of the 'Direct solar steam' project was to construct and test a pilot solar thermal power station using an innovative mirror concept.
The prime technical results achieved in the project were the following:
- The use of a fixed, non-moving solar collector, constructed from the least-cost materials available, in order to achieve temperatures of <800C at the inlet of a solar receiver at the focal point.
- The first-ever integration and on-site operation of a volumetric solar receiver with a gas turbine-alternator to generate electricity using solar energy.
All state-of-art concentrating solar technologies currently utilise moving mirror collectors which track the sun through the course of the year and/or day. Whether the systems are based on
- Parabolic trough collectors,
- Heliostats and a central tower or
- Dish-engine configurations - they all share this feature in common.
Such systems require numerous moving parts and have, to date, involved costs at such a level as to prove a major barrier to commercial market entry of the technologies.
The fixed collector principle had been used prior to the Solargen experiment under this Contract: notably, the Pericles installation by the Radio-Astronomy Department of the University of Marseilles - now moved to the University Campus in Recife, Brazil - was one example; similarly a US team constructed a large fixed spherical dish in Crosbiton, Texas. Indeed, a patent for a similar configuration had already been taken out in France in 1927 by an Algerian inventor. In each case, it is believed that the physical relationship of collector to receiver, as well as the receiver design itself, did not allow for sufficient energy to be harvested and transferred in order to produce electricity - and these historical attempts remain in the annals of solar energy, never having achieved commercial take-up.
While the Solargen technology involves the construction of larger reflective areas of mirror than any of the existing state-of-art concentrating solar technologies, it was the contention of Solargen and the Partners that, if the collector could be constructed at a significantly low cost, being the least expensive part of the entire system, then it could be shown that lower costs might be achieved for a total system, generating electrical power. The intention of the work carried out under the Contract was to demonstrate a cost prototype, as well as a technical prototype.
Both the cost and technical objectives were achieved.
After considerable and lengthy commissioning problems with 3 Czech-manufactured turbines and the British hydraulic drives (neither of which were caused or affected by the fact that they were included in an innovative solar energy system) the prototype built under the Contract finally operated in April 99.
The overall technical goal of driving a gas turbine with compressed air, superheated to 800?C in the solar receiver, was achieved. The result was a monitored peak output of 31kWe, the loss anticipated due to ambient temperature. The hybrid use of propane gas was also successful.
The system of thermocouples and remote monitoring was generally successful.
Construction of the first design of low-cost fixed collector, both robust and resistant to weather-damage from high winds and storms, was successful. The collector delivered the desired air temperatures at the receiver inlet - with indications that even higher temperatures could be achieved.
Finally, extrapolations from the costs of the prototype indicate that the target of an installed system price of 1,700 dollars - 1,800 dollars /kWe (~1,700-1,800 euros) is achievable for a 100kWe Solargen system. This would indicate that there could be market opportunities that might not be available with technologies requiring even higher premiums over conventional fossil-fuel options.
Exploitable results
The DISS (DIrect Solar Steam) Project is a complete R&D program aimed at developing a new generation of Solar Thermal Power Plants with parabolic trough collectors. The final goal of DISS is a 20% increase in performance and 15% reduction in direct investment cost over state-of-the-art parabolic-trough collector solar power plant technology as represented by the SEGS plants currently operating in California. This would lead to a 30% reduction in the cost of electricity generation with this type of solar thermal power plant.
DISS-phase I activities are grouped into three tasks:
- Design and implementation of a life-size DSG test facility (the so-called DISS Test Facility) at the Plataforma Solar de Almería (PSA): current open questions concerning the DSG processes require a life-size test facility where these processes can be studied under real solar conditions. One of the main project deliverables is the design and implementation of such a test facility at the Plataforma Solar de Almería, a solar research centre in Southern Spain owned by CIEMAT. Though the solar field planned for this facility is to have two parallel rows of collectors, only one complete row has been erected and hooked up to a Balance of Plant (BOP) during the first phase. The second row will be designed and implemented in a future phase;
- DSG Applied Research in DSG process thermohydraulics. Results of this task will complement the experiments at the PSA DISS Test Facility;
- Collector Improvement: develop and evaluate better parabolic-trough collector components. A small test loop has been erected at the PSA for testing of improved components under real solar conditions.
To download the complete project report http://cordis.europa.eu/search/index.cfm?fuseaction=lib.document&DOC_LANG_ID=EN&DOC_ID=49695071&pid=13 (click here)
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