Flagsol

The first commercially approved parabolic trough power plants in Europe were built in southern Spain. As a subcontractor Flagsol GmbH supplied the engineering, construction and commissioning supervision of the solar fields and heat transfer system. The Andasol 1 and Andasol 2 plants have begun operating and Andasol 3 is in the comissioning phase. The power plant will be connected to the grid in 2011.

. With net electricity output of around 150 GWh per year and a collector surface area of over 510,000 square meters these are the largest solar power plants in the world.

The three similarly constructed Andasol plants together are expected to provide approximately half a million people in southern Spain with environment- friendly solar electricity. They will also reliability contribute to Spain's supply and cover the demand peaks in the Spanish electricity grid during the summer months. The increased electricity demand is primarily caused by the high energy consumption of air-conditioning units.

Each power plant has an electricity output of 50 MW and operates with thermal storage. A full thermal reservoir can continue to run the turbines for up to 7,5 hours at full-load, even if it rains or long after the sun has set. Each of the heat reservoirs is comprised of two tanks measuring 14 m in height and 36 m in diameter and contain liquid salt. Each provides approximately 30,000 tons of storage medium. Upon completion of the power plants, all the stakes in the power plant companies are sold in accordance with the business model.

Data on the Andasol power plants (data per power plant)

Location

Power Plant Capacity