The international joint venture developing an advanced commercial-scale concentrating solar power (CSP) demonstration project has welcomed the provision of a EUR 80 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB).
Torresol Energy, which is owned by Spain’s Sener and Abu Dhabi’s Masdar, has secured the loan to help finance the construction and commissioning of the Gemasolar project in Seville, Spain.
The project is the first in the world to demonstrate the commercial-scale use of CSP technology using a central tower receiver and a molten salt heat storage system.
EIB vice president Carlos da Silva Costa said that the project represents an “important technological development which chimes perfectly with EU energy policy and which the Bank is proud to finance”. He added: “New energy technologies are essential to meeting the EU’s climate change mitigation, energy security and corporate competitiveness targets.”
The 17 MW power plant is being built in Fuentes de Andalucia by Sener and AMSA. Foster Wheeler is providing the steam generating and feedwater heater equipment under a contract awarded earlier in 2009.
“We are highly satisfied with the EIB’s support for the launch of Gemasolar, which is a truly innovative solar power plant and the world’s first commercial-scale project built with this technology,” said Enrique Sendagorta, Torresol Energy’s Chairman. “We are confident that central tower technology using molten salt offers the greatest development potential for the future.”
The plant’s molten salt heat storage system will allow independent power generation for up to 15 hours with no solar input while increasing energy efficiency by enabling electricity production for some 6600 hours a year – around 2.5-3 times as much as other renewable energies.
The salts used in the storage system are made from sodium and potassium nitrates and the high temperatures at which they can operate help to generate hotter and more pressurized steam in comparison with other solar tower plants.
Torresol’s long-term goal is to develop 320 MW of CSP capacity by the end of 2010, reaching 1000 MW in ten years. It wants to introduce and test new technologies in every project in order to increase the competitive position and reliability of CSP technology.
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