CIEMAT-PSA
CIEMAT is a Spanish Public Research Institution and since its founding in 1951, it has developed and led R&D&i projects in the fields of Energy, Environment and Technology. CIEMAT is formed by a multidisciplinary team and is owner of the Plataforma Solar de Almería (PSA), the largest concentrating solar technology research, development and test centre in the world. Moreover, PSA is formally considered as European Large Scientific Installation and its test facilities are a world reference and include all Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technologies and Water Treatment processes. Together with the development and the improvement of the original PSA facilities, an unique and great expertise around the operation and maintenance have been acquired by PSA’s staff. During the execution of this project, two different but complementary units of CIEMAT-PSA will participate:
1) Point Focus Unit (PFU) targets are focusing to provide technical assessment to the industry stakeholders together with the research and innovation related to power tower technologies such as the measurement of concentrated solar flux, thermal analysis of new fluids and receivers, optical and numerical analysis. Furthermore, the development of volumetric receivers has been one of the key research lines since 1987, being PSA the only facility worldwide where at least 20 different prototypes with a minimum thermal power of 200 kWth have been installed, tested and evaluated.
2) Materials for Concentrating Solar Thermal Technologies (UMAT) of PSA has as main objective the development, preparation, characterization and testing of materials for CSP Technologies, as well as the use of these technologies for the treatment and processing of materials, through different lines of activity.
Competence relevant to SUNFLOWER
PFU will be involved in the solar receiver development, including absorber optimization, thermal CFD simulations of the system and assessment process, and together with UMAT will be the responsible of all the testing and evaluation of the SUNFLOWER samples and absorbers testing. Moreover, UMAT will participate in the solar receiver develpment, including the analysis of the optical properties and its variation with time.
Website
Contact person
Antonio Avila-Marin
antonio.avila(at)ciemat.es
Inmaculada Cañadas Martinez
i.canadas(at)psa.es