201802_Renewable Energy

6/24

Australian National UniversityYokogawa PLC and FAST/TOOLS SCADA Controll Australian National University’s “Big Dish” Executive SummaryLed by Associate Professor Dr. Keith Lovegrove, the Australian National University’s (ANU) Solar Thermal Group has constructed the world’s largest solar collecting dish on the ANU campus in Canberra. This reflecting parabolic dish is 25 m wide and has 500 m2 of highly efficient purpose-built mirrors that reflect the sun’s rays onto a collector coil. This converts water to steam, which drives a steam turbine that generates electricity. Yokogawa’s FAST/TOOLS software fine-tunes the dish’s ability to automatically track the sun and maximize the energy collected. This project had its genesis in the early 1970s, when a team lead by Stephen Kaneff and Peter Carden paved the way for the construction of the White Cliffs solar power station, with 14 comparatively small 20 m2 dishes. Convinced the idea had merit, the team at ANU proceeded to scale-up the solar generator, with the first ”Big Dish” built in 1994 using commercially available space-frame technology. According to lead researcher Greg Burgess, the aim of the solar project has been to demonstrate that solar generated electricity is viable on a commercial scale. Their thinking is that building fewer large dishes, which can be easily replicated in the field, is more economic than building lots of smaller ones.Planning is underway for the construction of a pilot solar generating plant that will prove out the concept already demonstrated by the existing solar generator dish. Mr. Burgess also sees other potential applications for super-heated steam produced by reflected solar energy. Such is the intensity of energy generated by the dish’s efficient design that when concentrated it can melt through solid aluminum, stainless steel plate, and even the hardest ceramic known.Yokogawa Australia is involved in this exciting solar energy project, which may provide the key to future solar energy projects in Australia.Plant InformationLocation: Canberra, AustraliaCapacity: 100 kW/dishCompletion: 2010Power generation flow with solar collecting dishSolar collecting dishSteam generationSteam turbine3Success Story CollectionRenewable EnergySolar CSP