This professional event for the concentrated solar power (CSP) sector will take place in Las Vegas from September 17-20.
The engineering and technology group SENER is taking part once again this year in the international conference ‘SolarPACES, Concentrated Solar Power and Chemical Energy Systems’. This professional event for the concentrated solar power (CSP) sector will take place in Las Vegas from September 17-20.
SENER, a leader in the CSP sector thanks both to its technological solutions and the size of its projects portfolio, will be presenting a paper entitled ‘Competitive parabolic trough plants based on new developments’ in which it will describe the new developments in parabolic trough plants. For this type of facility, SENER has designed and patented the SENERtrough® system, in the versions SENERtrough®-1 and SENERtrough®-2. This latest version represents the evolution of the original SENERtrough® system and makes it possible to reduce costs in the solar field while maintaining the same performance. Its design has already been approved and validated for commercial operation and, since 2013, it is being offered as yet another option for SENER technology in the solar field. It is worth mentioning that the SENERtrough® system has been installed in more than 20 solar plants across the world, which makes it one of the leading systems on the market.
Meanwhile, the company Torresol Energy, which promotes the technological development, construction, operation and maintenance of large CSP plants across the world and in which the SENER group has a 60% holding, will present several R&D projects developed in collaboration with other centers in three joint papers: ‘Prediction of cloudiness to short time using techniques of remote sensing and imagery processing’, in collaboration with the University of Almería; ‘A Solar Radiation prediction system based on a multi-model scheme’, together with the Spanish National Renewable Energy Center, CENER; and ‘MAINBOT – Mobile Robots For Inspection And Maintenance In Extensive Industrial Plants’, with the companies Tekniker, TECNATOM, IFF and Robosoft.
For all of them, the professionals at Torresol Energy have contributed their technical knowledge and experience in the implementation, operation and maintenance of the Gemasolar, Valle 1 and Valle 2 solar plants. These three facilities are located in the south of Spain and use innovative SENER technology. Gemasolar is worthy of particular mention as it employs central tower technology with a molten salt storage receiver and heliostat field, and it is the only solar plant in the world capable of producing power round the clock from exclusively solar energy, thanks to its molten salt storage system. For this reason, the start up of its commercial operations was a landmark event for the global CSP sector, and it has received numerous awards and recognition, including from the prestigious European Business Awards. In October, it will be two years since the official opening ceremony, years during which the robustness of SENER’s design and the know-how of the operations and maintenance staff at Torresol O&M have been demonstrated.
