CSP I COLLABORATION
Sticking for the long term
Working together with suppliers is common in any technology manufacturing industry but is vital when you are developing new technology requiring similar warranties of a quarter of a century offered by comparable technologies. Gerhard Hautmann, management board member and co-founder of Novatec Solar answers questions on the company’s joint venture project with Henkel in developing an adhesive solution for collectors in Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) solar thermal power plants.
F
ossil fuels are finite, but the sun’s energy is inexhaustible – all of our planet’s energy resources in the form of oil, coal and natural gas add up to just 20 days of sunlight. Energy from the sun is not only a dependable long- term option but clean as well, and that is why it makes sense as an alternative to fossil fuels. This is the credo of Novatec Solar. Headquartered in Karlsruhe, Germany, this company uses its own patented concentrated solar thermal technology to operate the first commercial power plant of this kind. Since 2006, Novatec and Henkel have been jointly developing a high- tech adhesive solution for this application.
In the south of Spain, covering a total area of 18,000 square meters, two rows of mirrors, each with 16 units arranged in parallel, stretch across the plain: The pilot plant Puerto Errado 1 (PE1) is the first commercial solar power facility to use the solar-thermal steam generator Nova-1 from Novatec Solar. A further large-scale solar farm, Puerto Errado 2 (PE2), has been under construction since 2010.
The innovative design of Nova-1 is based on linear Fresnel collector technology. Sheet glass mirrors, bonded to steel frames with Henkel’s Terostat MS adhesive, are positioned so that the reflected sunlight is concentrated into a single beam. Above the banks of mirrors is a linear receiver installed at a
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www.solar-pv-management.com I Issue X 2011
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