The Andasol solar power station is a 150-megawatt (MW) concentrated solar power station and Europe's first commercial plant to use parabolic troughs. It is located near Guadix in Andalusia, Spain, and its name is a portmanteau of Andalusia and Sol (Sun in Spanish). The Andasol plant uses tanks of molten salt as thermal energy storage to continue generating electricity, irrespective of whether the sun is shining or not.
Andasol is the first parabolic trough power plant in Europe, and Andasol 1 went online in March 2009. Because of the high altitude (1,100 m) and the semi-arid climate, the site has exceptionally high annual direct insolation of 2,200 kWh/m2 per year. Each plant has a gross electricity output of 50 megawatts (MWe) and 49.9 MWe net, producing around 165 gigawatt-hours (GW·h) per year. The collectors installed have a combined surface area of 51 hectares (equal to 70 soccer fields); it occupies about 200 ha of land.
Andasol has a thermal storage system which absorbs part of the heat produced in the solar field during the day. This heat is then stored in a molten salt mixture of 60% sodium nitrate and 40% potassium nitrate. This process almost doubles the number of operational hours at the solar thermal power plant per year. Each unit fully loaded storage system holds 1,010 MW·ht of heat, enough to run the turbine and produce electricity for about 7.5 hours at full-load, in case of overcast skies or after sunset. The heat reservoirs each consist of two tanks measuring 14 m in height and 36 m in diameter and containing molten salt. Andasol 1 is able to supply environmentally friendly solar electricity for up to 200,000 people.
Andasol consists of 3 projects: Andasol-1 (completed 2008), Andasol-2 (completed 2009) and Andasol-3 (completed 2011). Each project generates approximately 165 GW-h each per year (a total of 495 GW-h for all three combined). The total cost of building the three projects was estimated to €900 million.
Andasol 1 cost around €300 million (US$380 million) to build.
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Concentrated solar power (CSP, also known as concentrating solar power, concentrated solar thermal) systems generate solar power by using mirrors or lenses to concentrate a large area of sunlight into a receiver. Electricity is generated when the concentrated light is converted to heat (solar thermal energy), which drives a heat engine (usually a steam turbine) connected to an electrical power generator or powers a thermochemical reaction. As of 2021, global installed capacity of concentrated solar power stood at 6.
Solar power is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV) or indirectly using concentrated solar power. Photovoltaic cells convert light into an electric current using the photovoltaic effect. Concentrated solar power systems use lenses or mirrors and solar tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight to a hot spot, often to drive a steam turbine.
Thermal energy storage (TES) is achieved with widely different technologies. Depending on the specific technology, it allows excess thermal energy to be stored and used hours, days, months later, at scales ranging from the individual process, building, multiuser-building, district, town, or region. Usage examples are the balancing of energy demand between daytime and nighttime, storing summer heat for winter heating, or winter cold for summer air conditioning (Seasonal thermal energy storage).
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