Africana Energía is a 50 MW thermoelectric solar plant located in the south of Córdoba and operated by three leading companies: Magtel, TSK and the Grupo Ortiz. These companies have joined forces through a common undertaking: to turn this project into an international technological and environmental benchmark.

Key information:

• Technology: Cylinder-Parabolic Trough
• Nominal Net Power: 50 MW
• Net annual energy production: 173 GWh/year (aprox.)
• Nº of loops: 168
• Storage capacity: 7.5 h
• Start production: October 2012

Virtual Reality Visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQVsbr644m0

In June 2008, BrightSource Energy opened the Solar Energy Development Center (SEDC), a fully operational solar demonstration facility used to test equipment, materials and procedures as well as construction and operating methods. The SEDC is located in the Rotem Industrial Park in Israel’s Negev Desert, about 157km (97 miles) south of Jerusalem.

The SEDC is a scaled cross-section of a typical commercial plant and serves to demonstrate BrightSource Energy’s proprietary solar thermal technology. The six megawatts-thermal facility has been tested and verified by an independent engineering firm, and found to produce the world’s highest temperature and pressure solar steam. In a full-sized, commercial plant, this utility-grade superheated steam is piped from the boiler to a standard turbine to generate electricity.

Key information:

• Technology: Power tower with surrounding heliostats
• Tower hight: 75 m
• Number of heliostats: 1200 , all generations (Ivanpah, Ashalim and Dubai project )
• Media: molten salt – 565°C max.
• Total Power: 4.2 MWth (no electricity production)
• Start production: June 2008

The Plataforma Solar de Almería (PSA), a dependency of the Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), was founded in teh early 1980´s and is the largest concentrating solar technology research, development and test center in Europe. PSA activities are integrated in the CIEMAT organization as an R&D division of the Department of Energy.Over 20,000 m² of mirrors are installed on a 400,000 m² (99-acre) site. There are several techniques tested under practical conditions, mainly solar thermal power plants.

Test facilities:

• CESA-1 and SSPS-CRS central receiver systems, 5 and 2.5 MWth respectively.
• TCP-100 2.3-MWth parabolic-trough collector field with associated 115-m3 thermal oil storage system.
• DISS 2.5-MWth test loop, an excellent experimental system for two-phase flow and direct steam generation with parabolic trough collectors in different working conditions, up to 500 °C and 100bar.
• The FRESDEMO “linear Fresnel” technology loop.
• Pressurized gas cooled parabolic-trough collectors system coupled to two-tank molten salts thermal energy storage facility.
• A parabolic-trough collector test facility with thermal oil (the HTF-PTC Test loop) for qualification of solar components.
• A rotary test bench for parabolic trough collectors, named KONTAS.
• 4-unit dish/Stirling facility, named DISTAL, and 2 EuroDish units.
• A group of 3 solar furnaces, two of them with horizontal axis 60 kWth and 40 kWth, and a third one with vertical axis 5 kWth.
• A test stand for small evaluation and qualification of parabolic trough collectors, named CAPSOL.
• A 14-stage multi-effect distillation (MED) plant.
• A multiple solar detoxification and disinfection application facilities.
• The ARFRISOL building, an energy research demonstrator office building prototypes.
• A meteorological station integrated in the ‘Baseline Surface Radiation Network’.

Official video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQVsbr644m0