The testing is designed to assess performance efficiency under commercial operating conditions before being deployed at proposed solar thermal energy power plants.
Developed by Solar Millennium’s technology subsidiary Flagsol and its partners, the HelioTrough demonstration loop consists of two rows of collectors with a total length of 800 meters and was installed between September and November 2009.
Flagsol also developed the previous generation of solar radiation collectors called Skal-ET, which was also developed by Solar Millennium and is in operation at the Andasol solar thermal power plants in Spain and at the hybrid solar field power plant in Kuraymat, Egypt.
Uwe Schmidt, chairman and CEO of Solar Trust of America, said: “HelioTrough is designed to be the most highly efficient and cost-effective parabolic trough solar collector available. We expect this technology to represent a breakthrough for solar thermal power plants and to further expand our leadership in the market.”
Before being installed at the operating power plant for testing, the new HelioTrough technology was first deployed in a German factory to test the design and assembly concepts and verify the geometric precision of the collectors. The early phases of the research and development for the HelioTrough were supported by the German federal environment ministry.
The set up, testing and operation of the HelioTrough collectors at the commercial operating plant in the southwestern US are supported by a financial award from the US Department of Energy.
