SOLAR PARABOLIC THROUGH COLLECTORS TESTING

Spain

IDOM ADA was awarded with a turnkey project for the concept design, detail engineering and construction of a solar parabolic through test bench for CTAER (Centro Tecnológico Avanzado de Energías Renovables de Andalucía). The objective of the new facility, which has been in operation since March 2015, is to test innovative collector designs with improved efficiency and performance for the solar energy industry.

Más información

The Advanced Technological Centre for Renewable Energy (CTAER) is a private foundation with several centres in Andalusia made up of universities, technology centres, public authorities and companies from the renewable energy technologies sector, and has as its objective the development of renewable energy technologies.

Through a public tender process, CTAER awarded IDOM with the contract to start work on the design and construction of the testing facility for the evaluation and characterization of solar collectors of the parabolic through type. IDOM developed the concept in coordination with CTAER, supervised the fabrication and assembly of the facility, and completed its installation and start-up.

This innovative approach will provide the Centre with R&D+i facilities with different capabilities to those currently in existence, for this type of CSP. This facility will be an addition to the types of central receiver types already available.

The developed concept allows the apparent movement of the sun to be followed, thereby achieving greater capacity for testing, evaluation and characterization of thermal optical structural and fluid dynamics of the collectors.

The system offers significant improvements on current testing systems and will permit the experimental verification and validation of proposals for new concepts or changes to existing collectors, as well as the testing and validation of standards and procedures, standards of characterization and evaluation of collectors.

The new facility, in operation since March 2015, is located in the town of Tabernas (Almería), on the Plain of Retamares where CTAER has 91 ha for their R&D work in the area of concentrated solar technologies, bordering the facilities of the PSA (Plataforma Solar de Almería).

Test Systems