Solar thermal power station in Spain for 24 hours

Business News Agency July 19 Torresol Energy announced that only one month after the trial operation, the Spanish Gemasolar solar thermal power station has realized 24 hours of uninterrupted power supply. It has become the first solar thermal power commercial power station in the world to realize all-day power supply.

Gemasolar Power Station is the world's first commercial tower concentrating solar power station with heat storage capacity, located in Seville, Spain. The power station has 2,650 heliostats and covers an area of ​​about 185 hectares. The temperature of the central receiver at the top of the system can reach 900 degrees Celsius. The tower receiver uses molten salt as the heat transfer medium, and the temperature can reach over 500 degrees Celsius. Compared with the trough concentrating technology, the tower receiver can transfer higher temperature and more high-pressure steam to the gas turbine, thereby increasing the power generation.

According to reports, Gemasolar's molten salt heat storage technology system can generate electricity for 15 hours without sunlight. As a result, Gemasolar can achieve 24 hours of uninterrupted power generation in multiple months of the year.

Diego Ramirez, Torresol Energy's product director, explained that due to the very good solar radiation conditions in the local area in the recent past, the molten salt heat storage system achieved full power operation by the end of June, allowing the power station to provide 24 hours of electricity. With the arrival of the summer, he hopes that the power station will be able to provide an average of 20 hours of electricity to the grid in the future.

The combination of molten salt heat storage technology and solar thermal power generation can greatly increase the efficiency of the entire power station, and its prospects are widely optimistic. In the Gemasolar project, the molten salt heat storage system caused the power station to delay generating time after sunset. Therefore, although the power of the power station is only 19.9 MW, it can supply power to 25,000 households in the vicinity.

It is reported that Spain Solarpark Calaveron, a 21.2 MW photovoltaic power plant in Spain, can produce about 40 GWh of electricity a year; while the smaller Gemasolar can generate about 110 GWh of electricity a year.

Torresol Energy was established in 2008 as a joint venture between UAE Energy Corporation Masdar and Spain's SENER. Torresol Energy develops, builds and operates solar thermal power plants worldwide and has received a 25-year tariff from the Spanish government. The Gemasolar power station project received a total of 171 million euros in investments from several European financial institutions.