CSP World

Infinia Corporation has announced it has begun commissioning the first of seven commercial-scale PowerDish™ installments currently underway at the Tooele Army Depot, a U.S. Army installation in Utah, USA.

This project is likely to be the third attempt to commercially deploy the Dish-Stirling technology. The 1.5 MW solar power plant that includes 429 PowerDish units will be the largest Concentrated Solar Power plant to use the Dish-Stirling technology, after the decommissioning of the Maricopa Solar Project, a 1.5 MW Dish-Stirling plant developed by a consortium made of Tessera Solar and Stirling Energy Systems.

The Dish-Stirling technology has always been seen as the most vulnerable of the Concentrated Solar Power technologies to falling prices of photovoltaic modules due to its similarity with it, in terms of intermittent generation and non availability of cost competitive energy storage system. Despite of this, Tessera Solar built the 1.5 MW Maricopa Solar Project as a demonstration project for further planned large-scale plants of nearly 700 MW. Unfortunately, Stirling Energy Systems filed for bankruptcy, the pilot project was decommissioned and auctioned and the planned projects were turned to photovoltaic plants or withdrawn.

Another attempt occurred in Spain, Renovalia tried to deploy this technology with a pilot plant and up to seven commercial plants announced. After the decision to change its technology provider, Infinia, to another company -a fact that was announced as 'the 3rd generation CSP is here'-, and expected changes in the regulatory framework of Spanish CSP sector, the company withdraw the projects.

Infinia has deployed, in a small-scale so far, its PowerDish product at numerous locations around the globe and is currently involved in two NER300 projects awarded by the European Commission. The Cyprus/Helios project includes a 50 MWe transmission-scale PowerDish deployment near the city of Larnaca where each of the 16,920 dishes will supply electricity to the national grid. The Greece/MAXIMUS project in the Florina region will have a total installed capacity of 75.3 MWe. The plant includes 25,160 PowerDish units composing 37 distribution-scale power plants, each connected to the grid via a single connection point.

“We are excited to mark this milestone in providing the Tooele Army Depot with a long-term, dependable clean energy solution,” said Infinia President and CEO, Mike Ward. “Given their need for secure energy, high performance and reliability, our PowerDish is ideally suited to help them optimize their sustainable energy goals and provide them with 30% of their electricity requirements.”

PowerDish is a parabolic dish with a unique free-piston Stirling generator that converts the sun’s heat into grid-quality AC power at 34% efficiency. The PowerDish uses no water, and can be deployed faster than other concentrating solar thermal technologies.

“Infinia has been a leader in free-piston Stirling technology for more than 25 years,” said Jos van der Hyden, Infinia Chief Commercial Officer. “The maturity of this technology combined with our lean manufacturing expertise creates a compelling message that resounds with our customers and is setting the tone for our expansion in the European solar market.”

The European Commission’s strict eligibility criteria for awarding these projects is similar to the high standards Infinia is required to meet for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and includes proven innovative technology, scalability, and on-time delivery. “We are confident our free-piston Stirling technology will help create a lasting impact as we move forward to help the EU meet its aggressive renewable energy goals,” added Van der Hyden.