Development of an integrated solar-fossil powered steam generation system for industrial applications

Das Poster gibt eine kurze Einführung in das Projekt SolSteam, in dem die Integration solaren Prozessdampfes in einen konventionellen Dampferzeuger untersucht wird

Joining forces to open the market for solar heat in industry

Worldwide, industry is responsible for more than a quarter of the total primary energy consumption and associated CO2 emissions. About two thirds of this energy is in form of thermal energy, while only one third is electrical energy. Thus, the use of solar thermal collectors for industrial applications is an obvious step in the direction of energy and cost savings. The sun does not shine continuously, despite industry's demand for process heat around the clock. Therefore it is necessary to combine the solar collector with a fossil fuel fired technology as a backup to ensure continual process heat supply according to the industrial load profile. To save planning and engineering effort for the integration of solar and fossil fired process heat technologies the German company Industrial Solar has joined forces with renowned industry partners. In this paper we describe three groundbreaking cooperations resulting in integrated packaged system solutions meeting the needs of industry and opening the market for solar thermal technologies for industrial applications

Development of an integrated solar-fossil powered steam generation system for industrial applications

To this day solar technologies do not cover a significant share of the industrial steam demand, despite the fact that concentrating solar collectors are market available, are well capable of reaching the required operating temperatures, and are able to generate steam directly. In addition to the low cost of fossil fuels and emission permits, other reasons for the slow market penetration of solar thermal technologies for industrial process heat applications are the lack of awareness within industry that such technologies exist, along with the lack of standard package solutions. Currently, every solar process heat system must be custom tailored and integrated with the fossil fuel fired heat source of the system. This results in considerable costs for engineering services and approval. Therefore Viessmann, a leading provider of industrial steam boilers, and Industrial Solar, a renowned manufacturer of linear Fresnel collectors and turnkey provider of solar process heat systems, have joined forces to develop a standardized solar-fossil fuel powered steam generation system for industrial applications. The two industrial partners are being supported by the German Aerospace Center, DLR, which has more than 20 years of research experience with concentrating solar thermal technologies and direct steam generation. Our conference paper provides insight into the current status of the project and the activities planned. This development is funded by the Federal Environment Ministry under the project title “SolSteam” and will form the basis for the development of a commercially available product

SolSteam - Innovative integration concepts for solar-fossil hybrid process steam generation

Within the 6th Energy Research Program, the German Government aims at a significant reduction of the primary energy consumption and 60% of the country’s energy shall be provided by renewable energy sources by 2050, see [1]. The process heat sector represents a considerable part of the total energy consumption. Heat within the temperature range between 100 °C and 400 °C was identified as the target market for concentrated solar applications. The Solsteam project aims at the development of a solar-hybrid steam generating system for industrial process heat, see [1]. In cooperation with the DLR (German Aerospace Center) that has a long-time experience in concentrated solar power, the system shall be developed that consists of a gas-fired steam boiler of the German Company Viessmann GmbH and a Fresnel Collector of the company Industrial Solar, Freiburg, Germany, both specialists in their field. In the present paper various possible integration solutions are discussed. Three concepts have been identified as promising and are therefore described in detail. The preliminary assumptions for input parameters do not allow a final decision for one of the three concepts. However, a techno-economic evaluation of one exemplary system has been carried out for three typical sites in Europe: Freiburg, Rome, and Antalya. The size of the solar field has been optimized individually taking into account common profitability criteria for projects. As expected, the optimum of the solar field size depends on boundary conditions, such as irradiation and subsidies on the investment