Solar Thermal Power –
Global Status
Dr. Ashvini Kumar
Director (Solar)
Solar Energy Corporation of India
Solar Thermal Energy
• Solar radiation is captured as thermal energy and
transferred as heat to perform various useful
applications
• Depending upon operating range of temperatures,
applications are classified as
 High temperature applications, usually greater than 300
deg C
 Medium temperature applications, greater than 80 deg C
and up to 300 deg C
 Low temperature applications, less than 80 deg C
• In India, good progress has been made in the
development and promotion of solar thermal
power in last couple of years.
Solar Thermal Power
Generation
• Also referred to as CSP (concentrating solar power)
technologies for power generation
• Technology Options include
– Parabolic Troughs
– Linear Fresnel Reflector systems
– Central Receivers or Power towers
– Paraboloid dish systems
• Thermal storage and hybridization with conventional
sources are the biggest strength
• Lot of scope for indigenization, local manufacturing
and employment generation.
Parabolic Trough Technology





Parabolic troughs focus the sun onto a linear receiver.
The parabolic troughs track the sun and concentrate
sunlight on to the receiver tubes placed in the trough
focal line.
Solar energy is harvested
to give temperatures up to
400 deg C.
Hot liquid is passed
through a series of heat
exchangers to generate
steam, and to drive a
turbine
Rankine cycle
configuration is used for
power generation
354MWe
“SEGS” plants
going strong after
20 years
Steam turbines
are the dominant
power house
Linear Fresnel Reflector (LFR)
 Similar to parabolic trough
technology
 Parabolic trough is sliced into
individually tracking strips of
mirrors and installed near the
ground
 Receiver is stationary and does
not move with the mirrors as in
the trough systems, and thus
provides additional design
flexibility.
 Has the advantage of lower
production costs and require least
amount of land per MW capacity
among all solar technologies
Linear Fresnel Reflector
Technology
1.5 MW
Capacity
plant at
Murcia,
Spain
(Air
cooling
system is
used)
Central Receiver Systems



Uses a field of mirrors called
heliostats that individually
track the sun on two axes
and redirect sunlight to a
receiver at the top of a tower.
Sunlight is concentrated
600–1,000 times, and
achieves working fluid
temperatures of 500°–800°C.
Can use various HTFs
including steam, air, and
molten nitrate salts (60%
sodium nitrate and 40%
potassium nitrate)
5 MW e-solar Power Plant
• 2 towers
• 20 acres land
• Two 65 ton natural
recirculation thermal
receivers
• Steam temperature= 440
C
• Steam pressure = 60 bar
• 24,000 mirrors
Paraboloid Dish Systems

These systems use series of
mirrors arranged in a concave
plate to focus light onto a
point

Usually, a Stirling external
combustion engine is placed
at the focal point for
collecting heat to drive
pistons by continually
expanding and condensing
hydrogen gas

With gas turbine, Brayton
cycle may also be used.
Global Status of Installations
Operational CSP Capacity
(Total = 2136 MW)
Technology Pattern
1800
1532.4
1600
60
1.5 36.4
157
1400
Dish Stirling
1200
LFR
1000
ISCC
800
Parabolic Trough
600
400
1881.25
200
25
0
Tower
507.5
1
20 1.5 2.5 17.25 5
20
5
Under Construction
CSP Capacity under Construction
Total = 2648 MW
Under Construction Technology Pattern (in MW)
1200
1010
1000
1 12
Capacity (MW)
508.9
776
800
dish
LFR
600
470
Parabolic
Trough
Tower
400
250
2125
200
100
28.5
13.4
0
China France India Israel Spain UAE
USA
Global Efforts for development
of Large scale CSP projects
• Indi(a)genization
• Must be scalable and replicable
• Must reach early cost competitiveness with the
conventional power generation and easy
dispatchability.
• Reduction in water usage as good DNI areas may
not blessed with water availability
• Building provision of thermal storage
Thermal Storage
• A storage system enables
– To negate the variability in system output due to sudden shifts in
the weather, and
– extend the range of operation beyond daylight hours
• The power produced throughout the day can be more
effectively matched with energy demand, therefore
increasing the value of the power as well as the total
useful power output of a plant.
International Developments
• Base load CSP power plant – Gemasolar (Power tower, 19.9
MW, Spain)
• CSP with storage – up to 7 or 8 hours is considered
commercial (several in Spain)
• Dry cooling CSP power plant – Puerto Errado I (Linear Fresnel,
1.5 MW, Spain)
• High operating temperatures – Gemasolar (Power tower, 19.9
MW, Spain), Priolo Gargallo (Parabolic troughs; 5 MW, Italy)
• Gas hybridization – all Spanish CSP plants (> 800 MW
operational)
• Coal augmentation – Hassi R’mel (Argelia), Al Kuraymat
(Egypt), Ain Beni Mathar (Morocco) (parabolic troughs)
• Stirling Engines – Maricopa (1.5 MW, USA), Spain (several
locations), Portugal (Government CSP demonstration projects
in several locations)
Large scale CSP projects
JNNSM: Phase-I
 1,000 MW capacity Grid Solar Power
Projects
 A provision of 500 MW capacity of Solar
Thermal power was made.
 2.5 MW capacity solar tower project
installed, and 7 projects of aggregate
capacity
of
470
MW
are
under
implementation having time for completion
till May 2013.
 Some pilot projects are proposed, besides
R&D efforts to develop the test and
simulation infrastructure.
17
Pilot Projects
• Aim is to address issues related to optimization,
variability of solar resource and storage constraints
and targetting space-intensity through the use of
better technologies.
• This means
• Advanced technology configurations which could lead to
cost reduction through higher efficiency and CUF, and scale
effect.
• Reduction in water consumption and footprint land area
• Potential for replication in commercial projects soon after
success of demonstration projects
• Potential for indigenous manufacturing
Project Configurations and Sites
 Based on recommendations of the stakeholders group and
site visits by experts, identified pilot projects to have the
following configurations:
Project Configuration
Identified sites and Broad
Specifications
With hybrid cooling
Bhadla (Rajasthan)
Available Land Area: 150 ha
Reduced (<= 30%)
consumption of water
Capacity: 40 MW est. CUF: 29% est.
High operating temperature Charanka (Gujarat)
Available Land Area: 140 ha
(>=500ºC)
Higher efficiency
Capacity: 35 MW est. CUF : 30% est.
Terkuveerapandiyapuram (Tamil Nadu)
Large thermal storage
Available Land Area: 160 ha
(about 8 hours)
Capacity: 25 MW est. CUF : 45% est.
Large thermal storage
Nennala (Andhra Pradesh)
Base load
Available Land Area: 160 ha
Capacity: 20 MW est. CUF : 65% est.
National Solar Thermal Power Testing,
Simulation and Research Facility
• 1MWe Solar Thermal Power Plant
• Research and Demonstration plant
• Combination of different collector fields giving direct and
indirect steam generation
Parabolic Trough Field
8700 sq. m (3.3 MWth)
Linear Fresnel Field
7200 sq. m (2.2 MWth)
Turbine operating conditions:
saturated steam at 350 deg. C and 40 bar
1 MW with 16 hour thermal storage Project at Mount
Abu By WRST with co-funding from Indian and German
Ministry
Solar Tower Technology
- 1 MW(th) Solar power plant based on tower technology
by M/s Sunborne Energy, Gurgaon, jointly with
Institutions from USA, Spain and Switzerland.
Steam
Turbine
Hot Air
Receiver
Generator
Steam
Generator
Thermal
Storage
Blower
Blower
Cold Air
Heliostats
Tower
`