Minoan Energy Community focuses also on the most advanced technologies regarding electricity production from renewable energy sources. Solar Power Tower plants (SPT) features as, perhaps, the most promising of them. The operation of a Solar Power Tower plant is based on a field of highly reflective flat surfaces, called heliostats, placed on ground and around a tower, at the top of which a solar receiver is placed. The heliostats are sited and oriented with regard to the solar tower, so as the reflected solar radiation is concentrated at the solar receiver, where it is transferred to a working fluid (liquid or gas) in the form of heat. The fluid transfers the absorbed heat to a power block, where it is utilized to produce electricity through a conventional thermal generator. A heat storage facility, based on molten salts, can be also introduced in the plant, to expand its operation during night-time.
So far, the developed and constructed SPT plants belong to the so-called 2nd generation plants, which operate with working fluid’s temperature up to 560 οC at the receiver and a typical steam thermodynamic cycle (Rankine cycle), implemented with a steam turbine. The total solar – electric efficiency of a 2nd generation plant normally ranges between 10% and 20%. For a 50 MW SPT plant, a typical final electricity production specific cost can be achieved close to 0.18 – 0.20 €/kWh.
Minoan Energy Community focuses on the 3rd generation SPT plants. This new emerging technology, with a combination of advanced composite ceramics materials in the receiver, the heliostats and the heat storage tanks, the use of appropriate working fluids and the introduction of a Brayton thermodynamic cycle, implemented in one or more gas turbines, can increase the working fluid’s temperature at the receiver above 700 οC and the overall solar – electric efficiency of the SPT plant at 30%. The achieved electricity production specific cost drops at 0.12 €/kWh. This low production cost, combined with the secure and guaranteed power production during the whole daily period, makes the SPT technology as one of the most promising technologies regarding energy transition.
Minoan Energy Community participates in a group of top-level scientists worldwide on the field, to develop an advanced 3rd generation SPT plant. The size of the plant will be defined, among others, by the available for installation land, a crucial issue not investigated so far.
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