Over the coming years, CSP technologies will be playing an increasingly important role in the worlds vast sun belts. According to the European industry association Estela, the installed capacity in Europe may increase by 20 times from todays 1,000 MW to 20,000 MW by 2020.
Material-intensive technology
In the short history of parabolic troughs, steel has been the conventional choice of material. However, compared to PV plants and other solar energy technologies, CSP plants are extremely material intensive involving up to hundreds or even thousands of tonnes of material. Therefore, aluminium is emerging as an interesting alternative to steel potentially reducing the total weight of a CSP plant to only one third.
Lightweight yet strong enough
Lower weight means fewer truckloads during transportation. It simplifies fieldwork, reducing the demand of machinery on site as even relatively large structures can be handled manually. It eliminates the need to weld structures and to conduct other assembly processes. Adding up, the cost savings of replacing steel with aluminium can be substantial.
Sapa has delivered fabricated aluminium profiles to several CSP projects. Sapa profiles have proven to meet the specific quality requirements of CSP applications due to, for example, their industry-leading alignment accuracy ensuring high precision and focusing of the sunlight.
Supporting a global CSP expansion
CSP technology is expanding on a global level. Projects are planned or initiated throughout the globe. Coupled with the vast amounts of material required, even in small or medium-sized projects, this places strict demands on suppliers delivery performance.
As a global leader in aluminium profiles, Sapa has the production resources necessary to meet the rapid CSP expansion on a global scale. As a total supplier, Sapa can assist customers throughout the lifetime of their applications, from design specification to logistic support.