Archimede starts work on solar receiver plant

www.rechargenews.com
January 26 2010

Archimede Solar Energy has started construction of its new solar receiver manufacturing plant in the Italian town of Massa Martana in Umbria. Archimede is a joint venture between Angelantoni Industrie Spa and Siemens Energy, in which Siemens holds 28%. The plant will have a production capacity of around 75,000 solar receivers from 2011, which will later be increased to 140,000 tubes per year. The solar recievers will use molten salt as heat transfer medium instead of thermo oil. Siemens believes that the technology will allow a significant improvement in the efficiency of solar thermal plants using parabolic trough technology.

"Siemens has the broadest portfolio in the promising concentrated solar energy business," says René Umlauft, CEO of the Siemens´ Renewable Energy Division. "We can offer about 70% of the components of a solar thermal power plant as well as EPC solutions. In the future Siemens can offer two receiver technologies using either thermo oil or molten salt depending on customer requirements." "The new plant," said Federica Angelantoni, CEO of Archimede Solar Energy, "gives us the opportunity to supply large volumes of high temperature receivers for the use of molten salt. These tubes can reach a temperature of up to 550° Celsius."

The first commercial plant using the technology is under construction in Sicily, and is expected to be operation in the early summer of 2010. Siemens predicts that the market for solar thermal power plants will show annual double-digit growth rates and reach a value of over €20 billion by 2020, with the U.S., South Africa, Australia, Spain, Israel, India, North Africa and the Middle East constituting the primary growth regions.