Torresol Energy and SENER’s professionals from the CSP sector will present several technical papers at the conference.
The SENER engineering and technology group and its joint venture with Masdar, Torresol Energy, a company that specializes in technological development, construction, operation and maintenance of large concentrated solar power plants around the world, will once again attend the concentrated solar power (CSP) sector’s international conference, ‘SolarPACES 2012, Concentrated Solar Power and Chemical Energy Systems’, this year, when it is held in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh from September 11-14.
The globally renowned event is organized by the SolarPACES Network of the International Energy Agency (IEA), and has been running for more than 30 years. It brings together the main stakeholders in concentrated solar power. The purpose of SolarPACES is to serve as a forum for disseminating the new technological advances in the concentrated solar power sector and thus every conference is attended by the leading experts on this subject.
Torresol Energy’s Technology Director, Juan Ignacio Burgaleta, together with process engineers, Antonio Ternero and David Vindal from the Gemasolar plant, will present the paper "Gemasolar, key points for the operation of the plant." It should be recalled that Gemasolar has now been in commercial operation for over a year, having been connected to the grid in May 2011. The significance of this facility — which belongs to Torresol Energy and is the first commercial concentrated solar power plant with central tower receiver and molten salt storage technology — continues to spark interest in the international solar power sector.
Meanwhile, SENER’s technicians will give three presentations on the latest technological innovations developed by the company’s Engineering and Construction division. These include the paper entitled "Single tank thermal storage prototype," by the engineers Pablo Querol, Jonathan Olano, Ángel Pereña, Tomás Velasco, Jose E. Arévalo and Jesús María Lata, on optimizing thermal storage systems in CSP plants. Similarly, the engineers Elvira García and Roberto Calvo will present a paper on Gemasolar’s first year in operation, entitled "One year operation experience of Gemasolar plant". Lastly, the Control Systems Section Head at SENER, José Ramón Villa, will discuss the PARIS solar plant cleaning system with a technical paper entitled "PARIS– A parabolic trough autonomous robotic cleaning system."
In addition to these three oral presentations, the engineers Sabin Fernández and Alfonso Acuñas will be displaying a technical poster with SENER’s advances in its parabolic trough system, entitled "New optimized solar collector: SENERtrough-2 prototype loop".
Torresol Energy has three solar power plants operating in Spain: Gemasolar (mentioned above), and Valle 1 and Valle 2, two twin power plants with cylindrical parabolic technology that commenced commercial operation at the beginning of 2012. As for SENER, it is the worldwide leader in CSP technology, due both to its cutting-edge technological developments and to the sheer number of projects in its portfolio. To date, SENER has participated in 25 solar power plants in Spain, the US and India, representing 1500 MW of power either installed or in construction, and effectively saving 1,000,000 tons of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere every year. This includes plants with pioneering technology, such as Andasol 1 and Gemasolar itself.
