The German Aerospace Center and it's partner in Italy are building a solar plant near a Barilla pasta factory in Foggia, which will provide Barilla with heat and electricity from renewable resources.
"The system serves to demonstrate the technical feasibility and at the same time prove the economic viability of this technology," said Gabriele Bertoni, project manager for Kinetics Technology, an Italian engineering specialist.
The plant has a solar tower with around 500 mirrors which concentrate the sun's rays on a special radiation receiver at the top of the tower.
A DLR spokesperson, Miriam Ebert explained that the system can be used very flexibly to supply industrial processes completely on a sustainable basis with electricity and heat at different temperature level.
It is possible to stabilize the power grid and make up for fluctuations by storing energy that is not required in the form of hot particles.
Previously known commercial solar thermal power plants use molten salt as a heat transfer medium but the DLR solar tower uses ceramic particles because they can withstand higher temperatures, are inexpensive and also pose no threat to the environment.
Culled from SANDRA ENKHARDT.
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