SCHOTT announced plans to establish a second manufacturing facility for solar receivers in Spain, doubling its solar receiver production capacity by the beginning of 2008. The new plant will require a capital expenditure of approximately $28 million (Euro 22 million).
Receivers are a key component of solar thermal parabolic trough power plants, which convert solar energy into heat and then electricity.
SCHOTT has already received orders to supply receivers for the solar power plants currently being constructed in Nevada and in Andalusia. The project in Nevada, the 64 megawatt Nevada Solar One power plant, is the largest solar thermal power plant to be built in the U.S. in more than a decade. The project in Andalusia represents the first commercially operated solar thermal power plant in Europe.
How Parabolic Trough Power Plants Work
Because they offer the highest level of efficiency and incur the lowest costs for generating power of all solar technologies, parabolic trough power plants will soon offer the potential to generate solar electricity inside the world’s Sunbelt at competitive prices.
Parabolic trough power plants consist of numerous trough-shaped parabolic mirrors that concentrate sunlight onto receivers (absorber tubes) that are located along the focal line. Inside these specially coated receivers, concentrated solar radiation heats a special heat resistant transfer fluid to temperatures of up to 400° Celsius (752 °F). This fluid is pumped to the central generating unit. It passes through several downstream heat exchangers and, as in conventional power plants, generates the steam that is required to drive the turbines that produce electricity.
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