Spanish solar project that works in the dark basks in EU funding

A innovative concentrated solar power project in Spain is to receive €80m in funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB), it was announced this week.

The 17MW Gemasolar project will be the first in the world to attempt to overcome the energy storage problems that have dogged solar farms by using a new molten heat system to store the heat energy generated during the day. Mirrors will concentrate the suns heat on a central tower where the molten salt system will retain the heat, allowing operators to use it at any time to create steam and drive a turbine to generate electricity.

Construction is already underway on the project, to the east of Seville, which is due to be operational by 2011.

It is the flagship project from Torresol Energy Investment, a joint venture which is 60 per cent owned by the Spanish engineering group SENER, with the remaining 40 per cent stake held by Abu Dhabi state-owned renewable energy firm Masdar.

Enrique Sendagorta, chairman of Torresol Energy, welcomed the loan, arguing that the project would prove an important forerunner for future concentrated solar energy projects.

"Gemasolar... is a truly innovative solar power plant and the world's first commercial-scale project built with this technology," he said. "We are confident that central tower technology using molten salt offers the greatest development potential for the future."

The storage system will allow independent power generation for up to 15 hours without any solar input, enabling the facility to generate electricity at night. Most thermosolar plants currently under development lack energy storage and can only operate during hours of sunlight.

Toresol claims the innovative design will also make the facility up to three times more efficient in converting sunlight to energy when compared to existing concentrated solar plants.

EIB vice-President Carlos da Silva Costa said the loan underlined the bank's commitment to low carbon projects. "It chimes perfectly with EU energy policy and which the Bank is proud to finance," he said. "New energy technologies are essential to meeting the EU’s climate change mitigation, energy security and corporate competitiveness targets."