… of world’s third largest solar power plant
Powerful hydraulic actuators from Parker Hannifin, the global leader in motion and control technologies, play an integral role in the world’s third largest concentrated solar power plant, known as Nevada Solar One. The rotary actuators are used to rotate and tilt a series of parabolic mirrored troughs, so that they are able to track the sun’s motion for maximum efficiency, and protect the arrays from high winds and dust storms.
The 64MW Nevada Solar One plant, located about 25 miles south of Las Vegas, spans 400 acres and generates approximately 129 million kWh of solar electricity annually, enough to provide power to more than 14,000 homes, while emitting near zero CO2.
As Gilbert Cohen, senior vice president of developer Acciona Solar Power (ASP), a unit of Spain’s Acciona Group, commented, “The plant is creating a lot of interest in the energy industry because it provides a renewable energy alternative.” This is because parabolic trough systems are used, which employ a different technology to the photovoltaic solar panels common on rooftops. They use concentrated sunlight, in place of fossil fuels, to provide the necessary thermal energy to drive a conventional power plant. Curved mirrored surfaces concentrate the sun’s heat on a receiver tube containing a heat transfer fluid capable of achieving temperatures between 120°C and 260°C. This fluid is used to produce steam that drives a generator system to produce electricity.
Essential to the success of the project is the ability to capture maximum sun exposure with the 760 solar collector assemblies. To enable them to track the sun, Acciona needed a dependable precision actuator system. The electromechanical systems used in other solar fields were unable to deliver the combination of control and robust construction that they were looking for. In contrast, Parker offered a hydraulic system that would be powerful enough to track the sun accurately during the day and provide safe, secure stowing of the panels at night.