Concentrated solar power installation with thermal energy storage

On July the 3rd 2013 Archimede Solar Energy (ASE) and Chiyoda Corporation ground break the  most advanced concentrated solar power installation with thermal energy storage.

The CSP plant represents the first stand alone Molten Salt Test Loop in the world and is located close to the ASE manufacturing plant in Massa Martana (Perugia). Italy.

The test loop will provide a focus for research oriented to the new frontiers of CSP.

Built with Italian components and Japanese engineering the aim of the test loop is to be a showcase for the Molten Salt technology and the Italian supply chain.

The partner companies include TECHINT, SQM, BFR MECCANICA, AXEL, RDM, REFLEX, CEU, MECCANOTECNICA UMBRA.

The aim of the project led by ASE with the Engineering of Chiyoda Corporation is to enhance the economy and reliability of parabolic-trough power plants. This type of solar thermal plant concentrates sunlight using parabolic mirrors on a row of receiver tubes containing a heat transfer medium.

Whereas today’s commercial parabolic-trough power plants use thermo oils as heat transfer medium allowing continuous operation with external molten salts tanks at a temperature lower than 400°C, the new 600-meter-long test loop, equipped with 5 hours Thermal Energy Storage (TES), is to be operated using molten salts only, at temperatures above 550°C.

The steam at a higher temperature thus produced will enable more efficient operation of the steam turbine for power generation and the TES tanks using molten salts only can be significant smaller compared to oil plus molten salts.

The potential offered by the salt is to be investigated at the test facility equipped with receiver tubes made by Archimede Solar Energy (ASE).

Today, molten salts are already being used as the heat transfer medium at the Archimede ISCC located in Priolo Gargallo, Sicily, a plant equipped also with receiver tubes manufactured by ASE for Enel Power.

Archimede Solar Energy (“ASE”), a subsidiary of Angelantoni Group, is the sole worldwide producer of commercially-available receiver tubes for solar thermodynamic plants with parabolic trough technology, which use sodium and potassium nitrates (Molten Salts or “MS”) as their heat transfer fluid. ASE also produces receiver tubes for oil-based and DSG – Direct Steam Generation (mainly superheated)- based solar thermal power plants. Production capacity of 75,000 tubes per year, expandable to 140,000 receivers per year  (approx. 350MW per year).

Angelantoni Group, established on 1932, consists of 8 production units located in Italy (4 plants), Germany, France, India and China. Started its activity in the refrigeration sector and, over the years, became renowned in three main industrial fields: Test equipment (environmental test chambers, space simulators, electrodynamic shakers, automotive test benches), Life Science equipment (ultra low freezers, laminar flow cabinets, clean rooms), Renewable Energy (CSP, PV, CPV, biomass, biogas).

Chiyoda Corporation, headquartered in Yokohama, Japan, is an engineering, procurement and construction contractor (EPC), listed at Tokyo Stock Exchange, working on a global basis with a lot of project experiences in industrial plants such as petroleum, petrochemical, chemical, LNG and power facilities.