Alcoa (NYSE:AA), the world’s biggest aluminum producer, is working with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) to test aluminum mirrors for use in concentrating solar power (CSP) applications, the company announced Thursday.
Currently, commercial concentrating solar power systems use glass mirrors to reflect and concentrate sunlight onto
receivers that collect the solar energy and convert it to heat. This
thermal energy can then be used to produce utility scale electricity
via a steam turbine.
Instead of glass mirrors, Alcoa and NREL are testing highly-reflective
aluminum mirrors, which are more durable and environmentally-friendly
than fragile mirrors. The Alcoa design could enable
high-volume manufacturing techniques to lower installation costs, plus
its monolithic structure enables a simple “drop-in-place” collector for
easy installation. The Alcoa design includes sheet, extrusions and
fasteners.
Alcoa said the design leverages high volume manufacturing and
assembly approaches utilized in the aerospace and automotive markets and could lower the
cost of CSP trough systems.
NREL and Alcoa recently installed a test trough at NREL’s facility in Golden, Colorado. The series of tests will measure the 20-foot by 46-foot collector’s efficiency to generate energy and evaluate its structural performance. Similar tests have already been conducted at the Alcoa Technical Center outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Test results are expected by 2Q10, after which the system will enter its next level of large-scale testing.
“We understand the end-customers’ need to lower the capital investment in these systems in order to lower the cost of energy,” said Dr. Eric F. M. Winter, Alcoa’s Director of Development Laboratories. “After listening to numerous industry experts, our multi-faceted team combined its materials knowledge with design, manufacturing and engineered finishes capabilities to develop a system solution that enables manufacturers to more easily scale up to meet the growing demand for this solar technology.”
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