London (Platts)--7Nov2008 German thermal power plant developer Solar Millennium will begin feeding
electricity into Spain's grid on a test basis within the next few days,
through Europe's first parabolic trough power plant, the company said in a
statement Wednesday.
The Andasol 1 storage system, built by Solar Millennium in Spain, absorbs
part of the heat produced in the solar field during the day. The turbine
produces electricity using this heat during the night, or when the sky is
overcast, the company said.
This improves electricity production planning, almost doubling the solar
plant's operating hours each year, the company said.
A fully loaded storage system can keep the turbine in operation for 7.5
hours, which means almost 24-hour operation of the power plant in summertime,
Solar Millennium said.
"With parabolic trough power plants Solar Millennium is applying a proven
technology to solar power generation, leveraging it into a completely new
dimension by using energy storage systems," said Henner Gladen, head of
technology for Solar Millennium.
"Andasol 1 represents an outstanding technical innovation and is a very
important step on the way to solar thermal power plants attaining base load
capacity," Gladen said.
The company is currently planning further worldwide projects totaling an
overall capacity of around 2,000 MW.
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