Industry 4.0 - World's Largest Concentrated Solar Plant

Introduction

Built on an area of 3,000 hectares - the Noor-Ouarzazate electrical power complex produces electrical power by taking sun light, converting into heat and the heat then heats up thermex oil. This thermex oil then heats up water to manufacture steam – and the steam drives steam turbines.

Description

Situated in Morocco near the Sahara Desert, the whole complex produces 580 megawatts of electrical power without using any oil, gas, coal or carbon based fuel – hence this plant is green & carbon neutral. It is the World’s largest concentrated solar plant.

The plant would be able to store solar energy in the form of heated molten salt, letting for making of electricity into the night. Phase 1 originates with a full-load molten salt storage capacity of 3 hours.

Development?

The project was technologically advanced by ACWA Power by the help of the Spanish consortium TSK-Acciona-Sener. This is the first in a sequence of scheduled developments at the Ouarzazate Solar Complex by the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN). The project acknowledged special financing from a number of sources. The main bases are including the Clean Technology Fund, African Development Bank, the World Bank, and the European Investment Bank. Similarly, the EIB has loaned over 300 million euros to the project.

What is concentrated solar power?

Concentrated solar power systems produce solar power by using mirrors or lenses to focus a big area of sunlight onto a receiver. Electricity is made when the concentrated light is transformed to heat. This solar thermal energy drives a heat engine typically a steam turbine associated to an electrical power generator or powers a thermochemical reaction.

The solar concentrators used in CSP systems may frequently likewise be used to deliver industrial process heating or cooling, for example in solar air conditioning. Concentrating technologies reside in four optical types;

• Parabolic trough,

• Dish,

• Concentrating linear Fresnel reflector,

• Solar power tower.

Parabolic trough and concentrating linear Fresnel reflectors are categorized as linear focus collector types, though dish and solar tower are point focus types. Linear emphasis collectors achieve medium concentration factors. Point focus collectors attain high concentration factors. Even though simple, these solar concentrators are fairly distant from the hypothetical maximum concentration. For instance, the parabolic-trough concentration provides about one third of the theoretical maximum for the design approval angle. That is also for the same general acceptances for the system. Upcoming the theoretical maximum can be attained by using more intricate concentrators founded on nonimaging optics.

Not the same types of concentrators create diverse peak temperatures. They are similarly changing thermodynamic efficiencies, because of differences in the method that they trail the sun and focus light. New originations in CSP technology are important systems to become more and more cost-effective.

Productivity?

The efficiency of a concentrating solar power system will be determined by on the technology used to convert the solar power to electrical energy. It depends on the operating temperature of the receiver, the heat refusal, and the thermal losses in the system. This is too necessary the presence or absence of other system losses.

Real-world systems claim an all-out conversion proficiency of 23-35% for power tower type systems. That operates at temperatures from 250 to 565 °C, by the higher competence number assuming a combined cycle turbine. Dish Stirling systems claim a productivity of about 30% that operates at temperatures of 550-750 °C. The average conversion efficiency attained is not equal to these all-out productivities. The net yearly solar-to- electricity effectiveness are 7-20% for pilot power tower systems, and 12-25% for demonstration-scale Stirling dish systems.

Mansoor Ahmed Chemical Engineer,Web developer