Chiyoda invests in Italy’s Archimede Solar Energy

Chiyoda Corp. announced Oct. 15 it has acquired a 15-percent stake in Italy’s Archimede Solar Energy, a manufacturer of the solar collector tubes used in a new method of concentrated solar power generation.

Chiyoda and ASE signed a cooperation agreement on molten salt parabolic trough-concentrated solar power generation and related businesses in June 2011 and are currently working on a plant to demonstrate this new technology, which uses salt as a heat collection medium.

The Italian government also announced that a feed-in tariff especially for concentrated solar power will become effective in January 2013. The tariff is expected to encourage several more projects based on molten salt technology, which offers greater efficiency than conventional parabolic trough systems using synthetic oil.