Four SOLYS 2 sun trackers at ACCIONA’s twin CSP plants
Published: Tuesday, July 23, 2013
To monitor the performance of the two identical Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants, ACCIONA placed complete solar monitoring stations on both Palma del Rio I and II. Together they have four of our SOLYS 2 sun trackers in operation to provide the control rooms with input on the real-time direct, global and diffuse solar radiation.
ACCIONA Energy is a leading company in the development of renewable energy sources. The company has installed 9,766 MW for clean energy generation of which it owns and operates 8,211 MW in 13 countries. The company works in a wide range of clean technologies: wind, hydro, CSP, photovoltaic, biomass, biodiesel and bioethanol ACCIONA Energy is one of the world’s top firm in concentrating solar power, owning a total of 264 MW of capacity in four operational plants in Spain and one in Nevada (USA). With the opening of Orellana (Badajoz, Spain) summer , a total capacity of 314 MW was reached in 2012. That means more than one million mirrors and enough power to supply around 170,000 homes.
Located in the municipality of the same name in Cordoba province, Palma del Río I went into service in 2011, seven months after its 'twin' plant Palma del Río II, situated alongside it. The two Palma del Río plants generate renewable energy equivalent to the consumption of around 70,000 homes a year, avoiding the emission of approximately 220,000 metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere from conventional coal-fired power stations. Together, the plants have a solar field of 270 hectares with a potential of 100 MW.
Palma del Río I and II are based on parabolic trough technology. This consists of mirrors installed in rows that concentrate the sun's rays into pipes where a fluid is heated to around 400 degrees Celsius. This energy is then used to produce steam and drive a conventional turbine that, connected to a generator, produces electricity.
Like the plants, there are also ‘twin’ platforms, both with two of our SOLYS 2 sun trackers. In 2011 our Spanish distributor Dilus Instrumentacíon S.A. installed the platforms for weather and solar radiation monitoring at the power plants. On each platform there is one SOLYS 2 sun tracker with pyrheliometer for direct radiation, a pyranometer for global radiation and a shaded pyranometer for diffuse radiation. The second SOLYS 2 sun tracker functions as a back-up and only measures direct radiation with a pyrheliometer. The measurement data is stored and transferred to provide the control room with real-time inputs to monitor the yield of the CSP plant.
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