Issues Addressed
To reduce carbon footprint and keep Portuguese commitments on reduction of CO2?emissions, the government issued several licences for high efficiency solar power plants based on Concentrating Photovoltaic technology developed by a national manufacturer.
In order to attract investors, the licensed solar plants are entitled to special feed-in tariff, during a limited time and/or limited on energy production.
Features and Advantages
Concentrating Photovoltaic (CPV) Panel concentrates sunlight into a small higher efficiency cell. CPV Panels are installed on a high precision, dual-axis, sun-tracking system.
The location (Estoi, Faro) is where CPV plants can really thrive, taking advantage of the many hours of sun with a very clear sky of Algarve province.
Compared to normal silicon based PV technology, CPV efficiency is higher (CPV panel efficiency is over 28%, compared to about 17-20% on common PV panels).
Additionally, there is less age and temperature degradation effect on CPV cell efficiency when compared with silicon based PV cells.
Each plant has a licensed capacity of 1 MWp (peak) and produces in excess of 2 million kWh per year, enough to supply over 150,000 homes.
Since started operation, the three plants produced over 32 TWh. This amount of green energy avoided carbon emissions equivalent to 20,000 ton of CO2?, when comparing to the production of the same of energy on a typical fossil-fuelled thermal power plant.
Additionally, since the plants are quite close to the load centres, transmission losses are also saved.
The local population highly benefits from the clean energy being produced on site.
Application (Where & How)
CESL Asia invested in the design, procurement, construction, supervision, T&C and O&M of three Concentrating Photovoltaic solar plants located in southern Portugal, which is very favourable to this technology.
Being Algarve one of the preferred summer destinations for tourism in Europe, the power consumption greatly increases during this season. Since it is exactly during summer that the CPV plants peak its production, they contribute year after year to a cleaner environment in that region.
Comments on the Solution
The plants comply with all local regulations, being licensed by the Portuguese Energy department.
As no new licenses catering for CPV solar power plants are likely to be issued, the manufacturer is developing the CPV technology to the production of Green Hydrogen (Hydrogen produced without carbon emissions). A Green Hydrogen pilot plant is under construction in Portugal. CESL Asia is following up the development of this technology.
