LINE-FOCUS CONCENTRATING SOLAR THERMAL TECHNOLOGIES UNIT

Puertollano GDV: Pre-commercial Solar Thermal Power Plant with Direct Steam Generation

Participants: PERSEO (Spain), IDAE (Spain), CIEMAT-PSA (Spain), AGECAM (Spain) and Navarro Piquer (Spain)

Duration:      January 2006 – December 2012

Motivation: The experimental results obtained at PSA during the projects DISS (1996-2001) and INDITEP (2002-2005) showed the technical feasibility of direct steam generation in the absorber tubes of the parabolic trough collectors, process set up under the terms GDV. However, the results obtained in the GDV experimental plant built at PSA for the DISS project are not sufficient to ensure the technical and commercial feasibility of large scale GDV power plants, as the plant existing at PSA is formed by just one collectors’ row without a turbine to convert the steam produced in the solar field into electricity. Therefore, it is necessary to build a solar power plant with GDV technology formed by several parallel rows of parabolic-trough collector, aiming to assess experimentally if the GDV process is commercially feasible.

Objectives: the object of this Project is the construction of a solar thermal power plant with GDV technology at pre-commercial scale (3 MWe), made of four parallel rows of parabolic-trough collectors connected to a power block where the steam supplied by the solar field is converted into electricity by a steam turbine coupled to a generator. This power plant will allow assessing the interaction between the parallel rows of the collectors, as well as the optimum start-up and shut-down processes for large commercial GDV power plants. 

The construction of the GDV solar thermal power plant proposed in this project is necessary before raising safely the implementation of large commercial GDV power plants.