In something of an experiment, Power China Northwest is building their new Tower CSP in western Haixi at 200 MW – twice the normal 100 MW.
Here; Power China’s first project; Gonghe 50 MW tower CSP in Qinghai Province.
Tower CSP is typically built at up to 100 MW. A larger project would have mirrors further away from the central tower, weakening the heat flux available at the receiver, due to the distance that reflected light must travel to the solar receiver on the tower from the farthest outlying solar mirrors.[SolarPACES has learned that the storage will be less than normal – just 6 hrs nightly – and electric heat from the neighboring PV project will assist in its heating]
Northwest Engineering Corporation Limited (POWERCHINA NORTHWEST) announced that the 200MW solar tower CSP project officially started the construction in Delingha that is undertaken by POWERCHINA NORTHWEST as a EPC contractor and invested by CGN New Energy.
CGN New Energy’s Delingha solar hybrid project has a total capacity of 2000MW with a planned area of about 53,000 mu (3529.8 million square meters) , which will be constructed in two phases and each phase consists of 800 MW of PV and 200MW CSP. At present, it’s the CSP part of the first phase of the project that started the construction, which is also the world’s largest solar tower CSP project in single-unit capacity under construction.
The project adopts the hybrid form of photovoltaic and molten salt solar thermal power generation, using the heat from solar field and the residual electricity of curtailment wind and solar power in the area to heat the molten salt in the thermal energy storage tank , and then generate high-temperature steam through the salt-water heat exchanger to drive the steam turbine generator to generate electricity.
The total design annual utilization hours of this 200MW CSP plant is [projected to be] 1,319 hours, [for] an annual power generation of 263.88 million kWh. After the whole project is completed and put into operation, the annual on-grid electricity could reach 3.65 billion kWh. Mr. Ke Xijun, the person in charge of the project said. The project will be built into the first new energy hybrid demonstration project in the western part of the Haixi region with a molten salt CSP plant as the peak shaving power supply, helping the construction of a national clean energy industry highland in Qinghai Province and contributing to the achievement of the carbon neutral goal.
