All About Solar | Green Energy News

February 5, 2006 – Vol.10 No.46

All ABOUT SOLAR.

This week’s news...

Nevada Solar One, now under construction near Boulder City, Nevada, will be the first, large scale solar thermal power plant to be built in 15 years. The last built was the ninth phase of the 354-megawatt SEGS (Solar Energy Generating Station) in the Mojave Desert. near Barstow, California. SEGS IX and others SEGS phases are now owned, in part, by wind energy giant FPL Group.

Being built by Solargenix Energy based in Raleigh, North Carolina, Nevada Solar One will have a maximum output of 64-megawatts using solar thermal parabolic trough technology.

In operation sunlight reflects off the parabolic shaped mirrors to focus sunlight on receivers - glass evacuated tube collectors - which oil flows through. Connected in series oil flowing through the them is heated to more than 750 degrees F (400 degrees C) in optimal conditions. Heat from the oil is exchanged to water to make steam to turn turbines and thus generate power.

(The SEGS facilities, by the way, also use natural gas for a back-up and supplemental source of energy.)

German glass and solar energy company Schott has announced it will be supplying the 19,300 glass receivers used in Nevada Solar One and is gearing up production facilities in Mitterteich, Bavaria, to manufacture them.

The receiver to be provided for the Nevada project was developed by Schott in 2004. Schott gained experience in solar thermal collectors by providing the glass tubes used for receivers in the SEGS projects a decade and a half ago.

The new effort in solar thermal power generation may pay off quickly for Schott. The company will be providing receivers for a 50-megawatt solar trough power plant to be known as AndraSol I to be built near Granada at the foot of the Sierra Nevada in Andalusia, Spain. The Andalusia region gets about 3000 hours of sunlight each year, on average.

Schott offers a White Paper Solarthermal Power Plants at

http://www.us.schott.com/solarthermal/english/download/ . Visit Schott Solar at http://www.schott.com/solar