Date: 28 June 2010
In addition to winning this particular R&D-related award, SCHOTT Solar was the only company to have been selected as a finalist for two additional awards out of a possible five. This recognition once again reconfirms the company’s position as the market and technology leader in the area of receivers for parabolic trough power plants.
“Thanks to our new generation of receivers it will be possible to produce solar electricity even more economically in the future,” said Christoph Fark, Managing Director of SCHOTT Solar CSP GmbH. “Overall cost reductions are the basis for the technology to be established worldwide on a grand scale. Already today Concentrated Solar Power plants offer a real alternative to conventional fossil fuel electricity generation.”
The Receiver – the key component of Concentrated Solar Power plants
Solar energy has the greatest technological potential amongst all renewable sources of energy. Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) in particular offers the possibility of generating clean electricity on a large scale. The evacuated receiver tubes, being the key components of CSP plants, play a major role in determining their overall efficiency: the receivers absorb the concentrated sunlight and transform it into heat which is eventually used for electricity generation. Therefore they have to withstand high temperatures and show minimized heat emissions at the same time. To achieve this, SCHOTT Solar developed a new coating of the receiver’s steel tube that can absorb more than 95% of the sunlight, keeps emissivity to less than 10% and shows temperature stability even far beyond 400°C (approximately 752°F).
The innovative product design of SCHOTT Solar receivers accordingly sets today’s standards in terms of optical properties, efficiency and long-term stability. It creates an important foundation to further increase the performance of CSP plants in the future and to ultimately generate electricity in a sustainable and economic manner. The solar field for example shall one day generate steam directly or use molten salts instead of synthetic oil. The use of alternative heat transfer fluids aims at operating the steam process at temperatures of at least 500°C, leading to higher overall efficiencies. Another possibility to bring the costs of solar energy down is the development of solar field designs with larger components. For both of these forward-looking developments SCHOTT Solar has prototypes available that are being utilized in field test applications already today.
About the CSP Today Awards
CSP Today is an independent company that has supplied the CSP industry with a platform to exchange technology and market information, and most recently since 2009 has provided awards and special achievement prizes. A jury of renowned industry experts selected the finalists in each of the individual categories in advance of the event, and the winners were then selected by a popular vote of the 500+ conference attendees on the first night of the conference. Winning the award for “Best Applied Research and Development” once again strongly reinforces SCHOTT Solar’s role and the company’s long-standing perception as the market and technology leader for receivers.
Add new comment