Solar Field 2 celebrates its first birthday
Posted: Monday, 18th June, 2012 | Author: Tania | Filed under: Events, Solar Field 2 | Tags: slideshow |2 Comments »Exactly one year ago Solar Field 2, CSIRO’s newest concentrating solar thermal facility, was opened by Prime Minister Julia Gillard. In the twelve months since, we’ve achieved a lot including successful operation of a new high-temperature receiver and demonstration of our improved heliostat design.
The next year is going to be a productive one, too, with no less than three new projects already underway for future installation on the tower – a new type of SolarGas reactor, an air turbine to be coupled to the existing receiver, and a new receiver for experiments and testing.
To celebrate the anniversary, I’ve put together a slideshow of images from the field’s construction, opening and first year. Click below to start.
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Hi Tania,
according your last mail I understand that there isn’t a turbine on the tower,
I assumed that you have a 200KW air turbine.
can you clarify?
Hi David – you’re right, at the moment there is no turbine on the tower. So far our experimental campaigns have involved putting the heliostat field through its paces and testing the receiver under different conditions. Next we’ll be testing a new receiver prototype and then running a different SolarGas experiment. The turbine will be installed afterwards, which should happen in a few months time. It’s already been sourced and prepared for our tower. You can be sure you’ll read about it on the blog when it’s hooked up and delivering the first electrons to our site and the grid.