Canada, Scott; Brosseau, Doug A.; Price, Hank
July 2006
Proceedings of the ASME International Solar Energy Conference - Solar Engineering 2006, International Solar Energy Conference , Pages: 8
rizona Public Service (APS) is currently installing and operating new power facilities to generate a portion of its electricity from solar resources that will satisfy its obligation under the Arizona Environmental Portfolio Standard. During FY04, APS began construction on a 1-MWe parabolic trough concentrating solar power plant. Site preparation and construction activities continued throughout FY05 and early FY06. Construction was completed and initial startup occurred by the end of December 2005. Full power production and initial performance monitoring and evaluation will occur early in 2006. This project is the first commercial deployment of parabolic trough collector technology developed by Solargenix Energy, Inc. of Raleigh, North Carolina. The plant, located near Red Rock, Arizona, uses an organic Rankine cycle power plant by Ormat, which is much simpler than conventional steam Rankine cycles and allows unattended operation of the facility. APS has teamed with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories (collectively called SunLab), along with Nexant, Inc. to support design and startup activities and performance assessment. SunLab has developed TRNSYS models of the plant and will utilize initial performance baseline data to validate the models. Eventually, those models will be used to determine whether a proposed thermocline energy storage system designed by Nexant, Inc. is technically and economically feasible for this plant. SunLab has also assisted APS with development of an O and M database using the Maximo system to track solar plant costs and component failure modes. Copyright © 2006 by ASME.Source: www.engineeringvillage2.org