Bridgestone Associates today announced an agreement with a major renewable energy developer to prepare conceptual designs, drawings, specifications and capital cost estimates for a 200MW Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant in the Western United States.
Under the agreement, Bridgestone Associates will work with the project developer and the supplier of the CSP solar field to develop and prepare detailed preliminary plans for the power plant part of the overall project. This work will include preparation of conceptual designs and alternative equipment configurations; preparation of heat balances; selection of equipment; preparation of layout drawings; obtaining budget prices for major components and preparation of a detailed capital cost estimate; preparation of a detailed project specification and plant description; and a reliability risk assessment. Bridgestone will also evaluate thermal storage costs and plant performance using thermal storage.
Concentrating solar power plants use mirrors to concentrate solar energy in order to heat a thermal transfer fluid. With parabolic trough and compact linear fresnel solar fields, this thermal transfer fluid is then used to create steam to drive a steam turbine generator and produce electricity. The thermal transfer fluid is either a thermal oil or, in some systems, water under pressure. Thermal storage may be used to increase operating hours of the plant after sundown or maintain output during cloudy periods. The project developer has not yet finalized the solar field supplier and the CSP technology to be utilized.
“This is a very interesting project for Bridgestone Associates that marries some of our core competencies in power plant conceptual design and evaluation with exciting new concentrating solar power technologies”, said Martin Anderson, president of Bridgestone Associates.
“Solar power offers an abundant source of renewable energy in the southern United States and in many areas of the world,” continued Mr. Anderson. “We are pleased to have been selected by this major renewable power plant developer to assist them with this interesting leading edge project.”