Joint project: Concrete Solar Collector - Prototype development and construction of a parabolic trough collector made of concrete.

Project duration: December 2015 to November 2017

Parabolic trough collectors are the most commercially successful technology for solar thermal power plants to date. The state of the art is represented by the ANDASOL type plants built in Spain with an output of 50 MWe and integrated heat storage for about 8 full load hours. Current developments in economic efficiency focus primarily on economies of scale, i.e. increasing the collector aperture and the overall plant. The potential for further efficiency increases of key components has already been largely exhausted. The aim of component development must therefore be to reduce the costs of material use, production, transport and assembly, but without compromising performance. By switching to concrete as the structural material for the concentrator, significant cost reduction potentials can be tapped. In this context, proven solutions from the precast concrete industry are used. A particular challenge is the precise, durable and production-friendly mirroring of the high-precision concrete shells. Within the scope of the project, basic material and production engineering principles will be developed and a first-generation demonstrator module with an aperture width of around 6 m will be produced to prove that the precision and cost targets can be achieved.