Fraunhofer ISE Develops Technologies for Solar Tower Power Plants
The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE develops new technologies for more cost-efficient solar tower power plants using solar thermal energy. Within the cooperation project "HelioPack", Fraunhofer researchers together with the industrial partner Solar Tower Technologies AG (STT) of Starnberg develop solutions that allow for significant cost reductions in solar thermal power generation. The project partners aim at cost savings and efficiency gains from an optimised construction of heliostats as well as an improved tracking and control to achieve a more precise concentration of solar beam radiation onto a newly developed receiver.
In solar tower power plants, solar beam radiation is redirected by a multitude of tracked mirrors (heliostats) onto a central receiver mounted at the top of a tower. Therefore, the technology sometimes is referred to as central receiver technology. The extreme concentration of radiation generates very high temperatures at the receiver unit where the thermal energy is transferred to a heat transfer fluid. The thermal energy is used to drive a turbine and generate electricity in a power block. As an alternative, the energy may be completely or partly stored in a thermal storage, to be used for electricity generation at a later time. In this way, solar tower power plants can generate dispatchable power around the clock and thus can contribute significantly to grid stabilization in regions of high direct solar irradiation. Besides other technologies for solar thermal power like parabolic trough or linear Fresnel collectors, which have been under investigation at Fraunhofer ISE for some time now, power towers are particularly suited for the combination with thermal storage due to the potentially very high temperatures and the low distance between receiver and storage.
"In the project HelioPack we will cooperate closely with our industrial partner to develop technologies contributing to cost reductions. With the know-how generated in this project, we will be able to offer future customers R&D services to further improve components for solar power towers or to manufacture them at reduced cost," emphasizes Dr. Peter Nitz, project manager of "HelioPack" at Fraunhofer ISE.
"STT welcomes this collaboration with Fraunhofer ISE," adds Dr. Antoine Bittar, Chief Science Officer at STT. "Through this cooperation we want to further develop and strengthen the advantages of STT technology: reliability and cost competitiveness."
