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Huge Parabolic "Solar Trough" Completed in Arizona

by Justin Thomas, Virginia on 04.24.06
Science & Technology (solar)

solar_trough.jpg

Recently, a brand new "Solar Parabolic Trough" power plant was officially opened near Tucson, Arizona. The plant consists of six rows of parabolic mirrors that track the sun as it moves across the sky. The mirrors concentrate the sunlight on steel tubes coated with an absorption material to keep the heat from dissipating. Mineral oil flowing inside the tubes is heated to about 600 degrees Fahrenheit.

The hot oil then is circulated through a heat exchanger, where it heats a second fluid that vaporizes to produce steam to spin an electric turbine. The plant actually became operational in December 2005 and provides power for 200 households. It was built by Solargenix, a solar energy development company based in North Carolina.

:: Via: The Energy Blog.

Photo credit: Kelly Presnell / Arizona Daily Star

Comments (6)

Hi,
I was just wondering if you manufacture your own parabolic troughs with the receiver.
thanks for reply
regards

raphael

jump to top Raphael says:

Hi Sir / Madam

First of all I’m student, and I’m planning to start my dissertation about collect and transfer the sun light to fluid to produce super heated steam to drive turbine to generate electricity.

Could you please provide me some data on solar irradiation in Africa(Libya) which I planning to place the system, and from this i can determine the size of the projected area of the solar collector. … and how many watts of radiation per square meter solar radiation?
That will tell me how many square meters will need to catch.
Lastly please provide me with some information that I can start with
Thanks a lot for your time

Many thanks

jump to top Abu says:

hi
nice to see the finally breakthrough in collertors tecnology. much appreciated.
being student working on desige and fabrication of parabolic trough in Pakistan. i would request to please provide more information to me so that i could introduce your product in our developing market.i could the very bright future of this technology.
thankyou very much for time.
waiting for positive response.
regards
kamal raja

jump to top kamal raja says:

Hello,
I`m university pupil and am to start to make a work on this type of technology, to produce energy electric.
You can me say as can calculate the number of collectors to reach one definitive temperature of the synthetic oil?
And as if distributes the collectors?
It has some software to calculate this?
Which are the suppliers of collectors of parabolic troughs that know?

jump to top Tiago alfredo says:

Dear Sir/Madam,

This is with regards to some research work that I have currently initiated for Power generation through Solar Parabolic Trough Technology considering India as .Kindly ,help me with the Following Data;

1. Annual Solar insolation In India in Watts/M2
2.Collector Area required to generate 220KW using 18% as Total annual effeciency (Solar to electricity net)
3.Number of parabolic Collectors required -Design -Number of parallel rows.
4.Total Cost of the collectors

Regards,
G.Dham

jump to top Gagandeep Dham says:

what is the required rate of flow of the heated oil as it pass through the pipe and exchyanger to make steam?

jump to top dennis french says:

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