Spanish research center IK4-TEKNIKER has presented some of its most recent developments in the field of concentrated solar thermal power; the center has focused its efforts in searhing ways of increasing the output of the plants while cutting their operating costs.
IK4-TEKNIKER's outcomes have been presented at the main conference about CSP researching, the International Energy Agency driven SolarPACES. The 2013 edition has been held in Las Vegas, US, last week.
The R&D Center has presented the papers:
"Fast, compact and precise mirror facet measurement based on the autocollimation principle", which presents a new system currently in the patent application phase for the automatic geometric verification of concentrator mirrors.
"Improvement of solar heat transfer fluid behaviour at low temperature by dispersing encapsulated and non-encapsulated phase change materials (PCM)", which will be describing the results obtained in a new generation of heat transfer fluids with fewer problems of freezing and/or degradation at high temperatures.
"MAINBOT - Mobile robots for inspection and maintenance in extensive industrial plants", which will be presenting the development of robots to inspect solar fields, which is part of the MAINBOT European project.
"A new high sensitivity and low-cost solution for the measurement of reflectivity loss due to dust deposition on solar collectors", which will be displaying a development made in collaboration with the company Microelectrónica MASER: a low-cost system for monitoring, in real time, the level of dirt present in large solar fields.
And "Selective Coatings for New Concepts of Parabolic Trough Collectors", which will be looking at the developments made in new parabolic trough collector receptors.
The paper entitled "EASY: An innovative design for cost-effective heliostats/solar fields" in which IK4-TEKNIKER and the National Centre for Renewable Energies (CENER) have been working together to develop a new concept of heliostat that could cut the costs of solar fields, has also been showed.
IK4-TEKNIKER and concentrated solar power
Over the last 8 years IK4-TEKNIKER has been looking into the development of thermoelectric solar technology to design new components, to develop and analyse heat transfer fluids and means of storage, and to come up with optical surfaces with enhanced features, among other things.
It is also working to improve plant operation and maintenance, to cut the cost of solar concentrator technology.
The developments scheduled to be presented at the conference reflect some of the achievements it has made over the last year in these fields.
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