1) Solar Power Plant Andasol 3 Produces Energy for the First Time
2) ZEP Cost Reports on CO2 Capture, Transport and Storage
3) New European Working Group "Power Plant - Grid" constituted
The solar thermal power plant Andasol 3 in Andalusia, southern Spain, for the first time produced solar generated steam during a test phase in which the rows of parabolic mirrors were aligned with the sun. Andasol 3 is due to begin commercial operation in October 2011.
A total of more than 200,000 parabolic mirrors have been installed in Andasol 3 which cover an area equivalent to some 70 football pitches. The investors in Andasol 3 are the Stadtwerke München, Ferrostaal, Solar Millennium, RWE Innogy and RheinEnergie. The Spanish company Duro Felguera together with Ferrostaal, Solar Millennium and their joint subsidiary Flagsol were responsible for planning and constructing the solar power plant.
http://goo.gl/ffCSI
The European Zero Emissions Platform (ZEP) has undertaken a detailed study into the costs of CO2 Capture, Transport and Storage (CCS) based on new data provided exclusively by ZEP member organisations on existing pilot and planned demonstration projects. The conclusion: following the European Union's CCS demonstration programme, CCS will be cost-competitive with other sources of low-carbon power, including on-/offshore wind, solar power and nuclear.
This is described in three reports on CO2 capture, CO2 transport and CO2 storage respectively, with resulting integrated CCS value chains presented in a summary report. Based on optimised cost estimations for full-size CCS power plants, start-up mid 2020s, base-load operation, middle fuel costs, 180 km onshore CO2 transport and medium storage costs for an onshore saline aquifer the break-even-point compared to power plants without CCS is expected at a CO2 price level of about 35 Euro/t CO2 for coal and 90 Euro/t CO2 for natural gas.
The reports and a summary statement were published on July 15, 2011 and are available on ZEP's website.
http://www.zeroemissionsplatform.eu/library.html
At the request of the VGB Technical Committee "Electrical engineering, I&C and IT" the VGB's Technical Advisory Board at the end of 2010 resolved to set up the new European Working Group "Power Plant - Grid".
In the first two meetings the task profile was put into more specific terms and the internal structure and the work processes were discussed and agreed. The Working Group is available for the member companies to address all inquiries and concerns related to technical and regulatory issues at the interface power plant-grid. In addition, the working group supports different project groups and the research project "System stability".
http://www.vgb.org/en/ewg_pp_grid.html
The VGB research project no. 305 "Determination of emission factors for storage and transhipment of coal" is completed. The emission factors for PM 10 and PM 2,5 determined within this project with great effort are small. The final report (only in German) on hard coal can be found on the VGB website, the report on lignite will follow shortly.
http://www.vgb.org/vgbmultimedia/Forschung/FE305s.pdf
Main topics of the August issue are: Impact of intermitting generation on power system stability; Filtering of system frequency as input signal for primary control - Advantages and disadvantages for power plants and power systems; Functional safety management of thermal power plants from the I&C perspective of an utility; Reduction of turboset stresses by installation of the power plant decoupling protection device.
Abstracts of all articles are available here:
http://www.vgb.org/en/current_issue.html