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May 2009 Maintenance, Test & Measurement, Calibration

Voith Turbo develops special vehicle for application in thermal solar power plants.

ELCOS and DRENOS are the names of the two maintenance vehicles developed by Voith Turbo Spain in cooperation with Spanish partner companies. They will be used in solar thermal power plants that are currently being set up on wide areas of the Iberian Peninsula.

ELCOS cleans the mirror surfaces of parabolic trough collectors with pressurised water, while DRENOS pumps the thermo oil from the absorber pipes and keeps it at a minimum temperature of 60° during maintenance. Thanks to the two vehicles, the power station will be able to operate at increased efficiency and availability.

“The power station operator knew Voith as an innovative company and had asked us for a solution. We recognised the opportunity to develop a special cleaning vehicle that would not be destined for communal use but for industrial applications - and this in a growing niche,” said Voith Turbo project manager Luis de Alfonso.

Over a period of one year, Voith Turbo Spain initially developed an ELCOS prototype in close cooperation with the customer. The prototype passed its two months’ trial with flying colours: the cleaning result, the speed and the low water consumption all exceeded expectations. Built for cleaning the individual solar cells, ELCOS is fitted with special ultrasonic sensors that allow the sickle-shaped arm of the vehicle to work on the 6,40 m-high solar cells as closely as possible without touching them.

At a creep speed of 6 km/h, ELCOS moves twice through each of the rows of mirrors and showers them down with water pressurised to 200 bar. Thanks to video cameras and relevant monitors, the driver is given a full overview of the process. This weekly cleaning routine ensures that the efficiency of the power station remains within a commercially viable range.

The development team also paid special attention to the economical consumption of cleaning water in the vehicle. A solar thermal power station rated at 50 MW spreads across an area of two square kilometres. Constantly having to return to base point and re-filling the vehicle would be very time-consuming.

The second special vehicle designated DRENOS has been designed for draining oil from the main pipes inside the power station and re-filling them afterwards. For cleaning or servicing these absorber pipes, the oil, which has a temperature of 390°C when drained, has to be cooled down to below 90° and then kept in a 4 m³ tank in the vehicle at a minimum temperature of 60°C.

The two ELCOS and DRENOS vehicles are used by the power station operator Cobra in a solar power plant with an output of 50 MW. Such a power station provides approximately 15 000 households with electricity. Since Cobra looks after another 350 MW power station capacity in Spain, a further eight ELCOS and four DRENOS vehicles are already on order.

“In Spain alone, additional solar power stations with an estimated capacity of 600 MW are currently being projected,” says Mark Neumann, Head of Voith Turbo Trading, who also sees long-term market potential in other countries such as the USA.

For more information contact Roy Webster, Voith Turbo South Africa, +27 (0)11 418 4000, [email protected], <a href="http://www.voith.com' target="_blank"> www.voith.com</a>

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