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These large companies will invest 300 million euros over the next three years to build solar thermal power plants largest and most innovative in Europe.
In these projects, solar thermal energy will not be used to heat water for homes. The commitment of these companies like ACS, Abengoa and Iberdrola is to build power plants capable of using solar energy to produce steam that can drive turbines and generate electricity in significant quantities. Solar thermal power plants use the same principle of conventional thermal plants, only instead of using feedstock fuel, gas or coal, solar energy use, inexhaustible and clean. In the near future solar thermal energy can be stored and transported The base is in the Plataforma Solar de Almeria, which has 25 years of experimentation. This major European laboratory has tested all systems and applications supposedly capable of using energy from the sun to get something profitable. Based
Almeria, are designed now larger projects. This has also contributed to the decision taken in March last year, to increase raw solar generation to 21 cents per kilowatt-hour produced. Economic signals, according to the IDEA, was welcomed by the companies concerned.
in Andalusia (Almeria, Granada and Seville) and Extremadura, companies with more foresight have started the construction of power stations, still modest (the largest is 50 megawatts of power, eight times smaller than conventional plants) to try to prove that the sun can produce electricity without pollution, at a reasonable cost and return expectations. Theoretically, this mini, 100% clean and inexhaustible, could satisfy the needs of 10,000 homes according to data from utilities.
Thermal power plants are no longer a dream, though still far from the threshold of maximum profitability. According to data from IDEA, each kilowatt of installed solar thermal energy flows through a peak, between 4,000 and 5,000 euros, four times the cost of a kilowatt of installed wind energy and only slightly cheaper than a kilowatt photovoltaic (solar panels).
most important projects carried out are:
- Andasol. With 240 million planned investment in the municipality of Aldeire (Granada), the project is Solar Millennium developed society (80% of the Cobra-ACS group and 20% of Germany's Solar Millennium AG). The project is on a plot equivalent to 200 football fields (200 hectares). The solar plant will have an output expected of 49.9 megawatts and be accompanied by a line of high voltage air evacuation.
The plant shall be of parabolic trough-called low concentration. The facility consists of a set of collectors that move with the sun and concentrate sunlight on a focal point where a fluid, which heats and powers a turbine that produces electricity. In the Mojave Desert (USA) operates a gigantic: 350 megawatts power.
- Abengoa Project. In Seville, leads the project developer Abengoa (IDEA holds a 18%), with an estimated investment of 30 million euros to build a small so-called central tower with a high concentration devices. It provides a power of 10 megawatts. The project consists of a field of heliostats (mirrors that track the sun), which reflect and concentrate the light into one point of a tower composed of metal or ceramic tube, inside which a heated fluid and transmits the heat to a circuit water evaporates and drives a turbine.
- Iberdrola DISS Project. With a planned investment up to 18 million euros, Iberdrola in Tabernas, AlmerÃa, a facility of direct steam generation of five megawatts. The peculiarity is that it uses no heat transfer fluid. Directly produces steam in the solar collectors. Iberdrola has eight solar thermal power plant projects, totaling 450 megawatts.
"These projects will contribute to Spain to meet its environmental commitments, but promises to help people become leaders and promoters of new energy technologies. These investments will generate new dynamism in energy applications, energy cost reduction, development technology and new markets. agree with other experts anticipate that we will move from a model energy importer to an exporter of energy economy and new technologies, "said Florentino Sanchez Moran, an energy analyst for Caixa Galicia.
Caixa Galicia Group offers: Free cost analysis and feasibility of renewable energy projects, including subsidized financing . You can query the phone 981187074 or the web www.caixagalicia.es / energy .
More information:
In the future next solar thermal energy can be stored and transported
Solar energy: Benefits and costs. What can we get and how much it costs?
Guide Solar and renewable energy applications
renewable energy subsidies
Galicia tripled solar energy, but remains at the tail of Spain
