Siemens Wins CSP Today Award
At the CSP Today Awards Ceremony held at the fourth annual Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) Summit in San Francisco, USA, organized by CSP Today, Siemens Energy won the award for CSP Competitiveness. Two key innovations were the decisive factors: improved solar field optical efficiency, thanks to the new UVAC 2010 solar receiver, and the use of industrialized manufacturing techniques to support the construction of solar fields for parabolic trough power plants.
Solar field innovations enhance competitiveness of CSP technology
"This award underscores our leadership position in CSP technology," said Avi Brennmiller, CEO of Siemens Energy's Solar Thermal Power Business Unit. "The cost of building solar-thermal power plants can be reduced thanks to our optimized construction processes. In addition, high-efficiency solar receivers increase the quantity of solar energy absorbed, and hence overall energy efficiency. We are thus making an important contribution to increasing the competitiveness of concentrated solar power."
CSP Today, sponsor of the awards, is an independent company providing news and information about the concentrated solar power industry. Finalists in each category were chosen by a jury of industry experts, and the winners were decided through a vote by more than 500 delegates at the conference in San Francisco.
Siemens is now able to supply - from a single source - modular solar fields whose components are manufactured using automated industrial processes. Extensive and valuable experience gained in the construction of the solar field at Lebrija, approximately 60 kilometers (38 miles) south of Seville, Spain, can be leveraged for future projects. It is now possible, for example, to assemble a collector in just 15 minutes. The solar field at the 50-megawatt Lebrija power plant measures over 400,000 square meters of mirrors which are installed on 6,048 collectors with 28 individual mirrors per each collector. The plant is capable of supplying electricity up to 50 percent more efficiently than the solar fields erected in the Mojave Desert during the 1980s.
Solar receivers also have a considerable influence on the overall efficiency of a parabolic trough power plant. Siemens' latest solar receiver, the UVAC 2010, offers high solar energy absorption capability as well as low emissivity (heat loss) and an increased effective surface area. The Siemens high-tech coatings minimize heat loss, thereby increasing efficiency, while the larger effective surface area allows greater insolation and thus increases the quantity of solar energy absorbed. These features improve the optical performance of a solar field, and hence increase the entire plant's economic efficiency.
