Enable Adoption of Parabolic Trough Solar Thermal Collectors

Parabol­ic Trough Sketch: A view of the par­a­bol­ic re­flec­tor, the re­ceiv­er (a tube filled with the work­ing fluid to be heat­ed), and the pip­ing used to take the hot fluid to the power gen­er­a­tion sys­tem.  More »« Less

SEGS Solar Field View from Above: The mas­sive scale of the solar field is made ev­i­dent by the 3 peo­ple stand­ing in be­tween the par­a­bol­ic troughs.  More »« Less

LS3 Solar Parabol­ic Trough Close-Up: The par­a­bol­ic mir­ror con­cen­trates sun­light on the re­ceiv­er tube. SEGS VII (lo­cat­ed in Kramer Junc­tion) is 50% LS3 col­lec­tors.  More »« Less

Ae­ri­al View - Solana Gen­er­at­ing Sta­tion: Solana, with an in­stalled gross ca­pac­i­ty of 280 MW in a sin­gle site, is the world's largest par­a­bol­ic trough fa­cil­i­ty.  More »« Less

Molten Salt Tanks from Above - Solana Gen­er­at­ing Sta­tion: Solana Plant has 12 tanks for ther­mal en­er­gy stor­age, each with 12,000 tons molten salt ca­pac­i­ty.  More »« Less

Schema of Sun­light Re­flec­tion on Parabol­ic Trough: Sun rays are con­cen­trat­ed on the focal point where the re­ceiv­er (a tube with fluid to be heat­ed) is lo­cat­ed.  More »« Less

SEGS Solar Power Sta­tion Power Block: One of the five 30 MW steam-Rank­ine power blocks from SEGS' Kramer Junc­tion lo­ca­tion in the Mo­jave Dessert, Cal­i­for­nia. The power block is where heat from the syn­thet­ic oil (com­ing from the par­a­bol­ic troughs solar con­cen­tra­tors), is con­vert­ed to steam to drive the tur­bine-gen­er­a­tor.  More »« Less

Parabol­ic Throughs Solar Ther­mal Col­lec­tors at SEGS: LS2 troughs at SEGS solar power sta­tion at Kramer Junc­tion, Cal­i­for­nia.  More »« Less

SEGS Solar Power Sta­tion Di­a­gram of Oper­a­tion: Parabol­ic troughs solar col­lec­tors con­cen­trate sun­light to heat a syn­thet­ic oil, which then heats water to cre­ate steam. The steam is piped to an on­site tur­bine-gen­er­a­tor to pro­duce elec­tric­i­ty. On cloudy days, the plant uses a sup­ple­men­tary nat­u­ral gas boil­er to gen­er­ate ad­di­tion­al steam to drive the tur­bine-gen­er­a­tor.  More »« Less

Side View of LS2 Solar Parabol­ic Trough at SEGS: The aper­ture of the LS2 par­a­bol­ic trough is about three times the height of the per­son in the image. No­tice the re­ceiv­er, the tube going trough the focal line of the par­a­bola. Syn­thet­ic oil is heat­ed as it flows trough the re­ceiv­er.  More »« Less

Molten Salt Ther­mal En­er­gy Stor­age Tanks - Solana Gen­er­at­ing Sta­tion: The molten-salt tanks en­able the solar plant to gen­er­ate power at max­i­mum ca­pac­i­ty for six hours with­out solar ra­di­a­tion. Heat stored in the molten salt is used to pro­duce steam to drive the tur­bine-gen­er­a­tor.  More »« Less

Oper­a­tion Di­a­gram - Solana Gen­er­at­ing Sta­tion: Ther­mi­nol syn­thet­ic oil heats up as it trav­els through the re­ceiv­er tubes of the par­a­bol­ic trough solar ther­mal col­lec­tors. The hot oil is then used to gen­er­ate steam to drive the tur­bine-gen­er­a­tor. At times, some hot oil may be piped to a heat ex­chang­er to trans­fer heat to molten salt. The hot molten salt is stored in the hot tank. When need­ed, the stored hot molten salt is used to heat oil to drive the tur­bine-gen­er­a­tor. Solana uses a two-tank in­di­rect sys­tem for ther­mal en­er­gy stor­age.  More »« Less

Aben­goa E2 Solar Ther­mal Col­lec­tor - Solana Gen­er­at­ing Sta­tion: The E2 par­a­bol­ic trough has a 5.75 m aper­ture and 125 m length. It uses Schott re­ceivers and Rio­glass mir­rors made of tem­pered glass. It has a gal­va­nized steel space­frame struc­ture with hy­draulic drive.  More »« Less

Ae­ri­al View from West - Solana Gen­er­at­ing Sta­tion: The power block and molten-salt tanks (ther­mal en­er­gy stor­age) are shown in the cen­ter. The solar field cov­ers 3 square miles with 3,200 mir­rored par­a­bol­ic trough col­lec­tors hav­ing a com­bined 2.2 mil­lion square me­ters of re­flec­tive area.  More »« Less

Parabol­ic Trough of the Mo­jave Solar Pro­ject: A Solar Ther­mal Col­lec­tor for elec­tri­cal power gen­er­a­tion. Lo­cat­ed at Lock­hart near Harp­er Lake, Cal­i­for­nia.  More »« Less

Solar Parabol­ic Trough Re­ceiv­er with Glass En­ve­lope - Di­a­gram: The heat col­lec­tion el­e­ment (the re­ceiv­er) in­cludes an evac­u­a­tion noz­zle, and glass to metal seals to pre­serve the vac­u­um be­tween the glass en­ve­lope and the metal tube. Chem­i­cal sponges in­di­cate the sta­tus of the vac­u­um.  More »« Less

In­stal­la­tion of Re­ceiv­er - Solar En­er­gy Gen­er­at­ing Sys­tems: New SOLEL re­ceivers (heat col­lec­tion tubes) at SEGS Kramer Junc­tion Con­cen­trat­ing Solar Power sta­tion, 1995.  More »« Less

Clean­ing of Solar Col­lec­tors with Water Truck - Solar En­er­gy Gen­er­at­ing Sys­tems: Parabol­ic trough mir­ror clean­ing at SEGS Kramer Junc­tion solar plant using the del­uge method.  More »« Less

LS2 Solar Ther­mal Col­lec­tors in Front of Power Block - SEGS: Tech­ni­cian check­ing par­a­bol­ic troughs at SEGS - Kramer Junc­tion solar power sta­tion.  More »« Less

Ae­ri­al View of Kramer Junc­tion's 5 Solar Power Plants - SEGS: The 5 plants have a total gen­er­at­ing ca­pac­i­ty of 150 MW, which can power about 150,000 homes. These plants are part of SEGS' total of 9 plants.  More »« Less

High Alti­tude View of Kramer Junc­tion's 5 Solar Power Plants - SEGS: Coun­ter­clock­wise from lower right: SEGS 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Each plant has a 30 MW gen­er­at­ing ca­pac­i­ty.  More »« Less

Field of Parabol­ic Trough Col­lec­tors Dur­ing In­stal­la­tion at Solana Plant: The mir­rored col­lec­tors are built on site, cov­er­ing 3 square miles at Aben­goa's Solana plant.  More »« Less

Mr. Twis­ter Mir­ror Wash­ing Ma­chine - SEGS Plant: A way of clean­ing par­a­bol­ic trough mir­rors at SEGS solar power plant, Kramer Junc­tion. The ma­chine has sprayers that spin as it pass­es by the mir­rors. The fre­quen­cy of wash­ing may vary from week­ly in the sum­mer to every few months in the win­ter.  More »« Less