Commercializing concentrated solar energy
The aim of the project is to innovative refine an own financed CSP prototype system to a stage of commercialization, and to demonstrate the technological, economic and environmental advancement, which district heating and other industries using high pressure water or process steam can experience from the utilization of CSP technology.
In Denmark the application of solar panels for district heating production has developed rapidly in recent
years. The total installed capacity was no more than 45.000 m2 in 2009, but reached a dazzling 160.000
m2 by the end of 2011 and with the recent estimate of over 320.000m2 of solar panels installed by the end
of 2012, the market will have endured a 100% annual growth for an on-going three years.
Aalborg CSP predicted the potential for solar energy in a district heating context and initiated, with a point
of departure in a market leader position of sub-supplier for utility scale concentrated solar power (CSP)
plants in southern Europe, a redesign of the conventional CSP parabolic trough technology. The aim of the
redesign was to further develop the technology to match the weather conditions in Denmark and the
system configurations and output demand of district heating plants. The prototype was financed, designed,
developed, produced, erected and commissioned by Aalborg CSP without any external funding. The
system was installed at Thisted Varmeforsyning, and the prototype has recently validated the CSP
technology’s basic technical principles and functionality to be operational in a district-heating context. On
the basis of these validated technical principles the ”Commercializing concentrated solar energy” project
aims to develop an innovative redesign and optimization, which will make the technology ready for
commercialization. The demonstration plant will be the world’s first large scale CSP system for district
heating production, and will provide a series of beneficial attributes for the customers compared with the
traditional solar panels, see 4.1. for a detailed description of CSP and the competitive advantages.
The CSP technology will annually produce 6.212MWh of hot water to the system. The effective utilization
is 8.309 m2 of mirrors and a total of 21.600 m2 of land, which is an 50% increased efficiency compared to
the traditional solar panels, see appendix for a comparison between commercial solar panel plants and
CSP technology: CSP vs. Solar panels.By realizing this demonstration project 20 jobs will be created in
the project supply chain, and 12 jobs within the highly educated segment is created among the partners in
the consortium.The redesigned CSP demonstration plant has a configuration that enables the production of
higher temperatures than required in district heating plants. Under conditions with a higher direct normal
irradiation (DNI) than Denmark, the system can produce high pressure steam. A commercialization of this
technology will therefore open the possibility for a series of industries to effectively utilize solar energy to
meet their process steam demands. The CSP technology will therefore not solely compete with the solar
panels on the district heating market, but open op an entirely new international solar energy market, where
countries with richer DNI can experience a new exploration of the technology.
The measurements showed, as expected, that the traditional flat sun captures has the highest effect at about 50 degrees or under, on the other hand the concentrated sun captures has the highest effect at about 70 degrees or above. Therefor it is expected that bigger sun captures will have a better economy, where the two types of sun captures are combined, so that the plan sun capture are installed in the “cold end” and the concentrated sun captures in “hot end” – all connected to a district heating plant. Therefore EUDP has granted for a development and demonstration project in EUDP round 2013-II.
Key figures
Category
Dokumenter
Participants
Partner | Subsidy | Auto financing |
---|---|---|
Aalborg CSP A/S | 0,40 mio. DKK | 0,12 mio. DKK |
Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU) | 0,40 mio. DKK | 0,07 mio. DKK |