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Thermal Solar Power Plants Experience

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Solar Power Plants

Abstract

In parallel with rising interest in solar power generation, several solar thermal facilities of different configuration and size were built, operated, and evaluated in the last decade and a half. Some of these facilities were of exploratory, first-of-a-kind or demonstration nature, in some cases designed merely as engineering experiments for the purpose of gaining performance and operating data at the subsystem and overall plant level. Most facilities were designed as modest-size experimental or prototype solar power plants (SPP) for producing electricity, in a few cases also for cogenerating thermal energy. Of all solar thermal technologies investigated, SPPs using parabolic trough concentrators were the first to reach sufficient maturity to be constructed on a commercial basis in a favorable regulatory environment. Table 7.1 provides an overview of the facilities built, their aggregate nominal capacity (MWe), and their total collective/reflective area.

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Grasse, W., Hertlein, H.P., Winter, CJ., Braun, G.W. (1991). Thermal Solar Power Plants Experience. In: Winter, CJ., Sizmann, R.L., Vant-Hull, L.L. (eds) Solar Power Plants. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-61245-9_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-61245-9_7

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