Increasingly, alternative energy, the solar thermal energy in this case becomes a viable alternative energy source .
Pirobloc has taken part in a significant number of projects related to this technology.
As specialists in the engineering and manufacture of heat transfer fluid heaters and HTF systems, we have participated in the following projects:
- Grea -Abengoa , Universitat de Lleida
- Masdar Institute ( UAE)
- Andasol
- Papas Safor
- CIEMAT – Plataforma Solar de Almería
- Wroclaw Universitiy
These ones are different projects, both research and industry. We have been an active part of one of the few industrial real cases where we designed the integration between the parabolic concentrators and our heat transfer fluid heaters circuit .
The concept is as follows: the existing thermal oil heaters with gas as fuel and energy source, normally work. In parallel, parabolic concentrators that collect solar energy, were also installed. The solar energy is used to heats the heat transfer fluid of that circuit. That secondary circuit is integrated into the main heaters circuit so that it manages to raise the return temperature the HTF with the logically energy savings by reducing consumption of conventional fuel in existing heaters.
At this point the parabolic concentrators technology offers attractive yields and atractive investment returns for thermal energy consumer enterprises . It is true that it is necessary a case- by-case basis study and that the radiation areas of different parts of the world geography play an important role. Also, the temperatures and the heat transfer fluid affect to the viability of such projects.
Carles Ferrer is an industrial engineer by Universitat de Barcelona. He’s the sales director at Pirobloc and has been involved in the development of many thermal fluid projects in more than 80 countries.
