Turkey’s first local solar tower built in southern city

[Yuuki]

Turkey’s first local solar tower built in southern city
APRIL 17, 2013

The first local concentrated solar power tower plant built in Turkish southern province of Mersin has a 5 MW of thermal power capacity. Company photo

Turkish energy company Greenway has completed the construction of Turkey’s first “concentrated solar power tower plant” (CSP) in the southern province of Mersin, which is located on one of the world’s major Sun Belt areas.


The first local concentrated solar power tower plant built in Turkish southern province of Mersin has a 5 MW of thermal power capacity. Company photo
The plant, which has been built with an investment of $50 million by Greenway with the support of Turkey’s science watchdog TÜBİTAK and the Technology Development Foundation of Turkey (TTGV), generates 5 MW of thermal power, equivalent to the energy requirement of 1,500 houses.

“Turkey is located on a major sun belt and is lucky compared to many countries that develop technology in this field,” Co-founder of Greenway and Project Management Director Serdar Erturan said in a statement.

Erturan noted that major world powers had been placing a special focus on solar power plants as a substantial power generation source in response to the increasing energy demand due to rising technological needs.The plant is used as one of the most efficient methods to convert solar power to electricity across the world. While it’s one of its kind in Turkey, it also marks many firsts in the world.

There are similar tower type plants in Spain, Israel and the U.S., and the Greenway Mersin CSP stands out for its wireless communication system as well as its lego type design, which enables easy transfer, installation and easy access to the site.

Competetive price gain

The plant utilizes only water and solar light, and by focusing solar energy over the tower, it enables reaching high temperatures. Reflective panels consist of unique glass mirrors and system components and energy production processes contain only environment friendly materials. The only output of the system is the high pressure steam.

“Thanks to hybrid and compact systems that lower costs to competitive levels and are not dependent on external sources in technological terms, it is possible to generate energy from renewable energy sources, at high outputs and competitive prices,” Erturan said.

Turkey’s first local solar tower built in southern city

 

[LegionnairE]

5MW, definition of nothing...

Still, thanks to Greenway. Turkish government with all it's might still doesn't have a solar power plant in 2013.

 

[-SINAN-]

I read this article past week. If you remember our thread about Akkuyu and Sinop Nuclear reactors.

Akkuyu Reactor produces 4800 MW electricity and costs $20 Billion.

Now they say this tower produces 5 MW of thermal power at a cost of $50 milion. But there is 2 parameters that we have to take in to equation. Efficieny Ratio and The Efficiency Ratio to convert thermal power to electricity.

Efficiency Ratio in a solar system is 0.3 (due to weather)
The Efficiency Ratio to convert thermal power to electricity should be around 0.8 (due to friction of steam pipes, moving mechanical parts, turbine etc..)

So the number of the total solar towers which will be the equivalent of the Akkuyu Nuclear reactor should be.
4800 MW/(5 MW x 0.8 x 0.3) = 6000

For a cost of $50 million x 6000 = $300 Billion (Lets not forget we are not paying for the construction of the Akkuyu)

I didn't find this system feasable.

 

[what]

Its easier to set-up 20 of these then it is to build nuclear reactors and also its safer and cleaner.

Solar collector are getting cheaper each day and if we had collectors on every roof in the souther parts of Turkey we would be self-sufficient.

Germany with its shi.tty weather broke records in the production of energy from these collectors last year. There was almost no summer here btw (it was awful..). The government supported everyone who decided to put one of these on his roof with a few thousand Euros.
No foreign investments needed and within a few years it will pay off for everyone, no more monthly bills for electricity instead you will be now able to sell your surpluss energy back to the companies.

So much potential wasted.

 

[LegionnairE]

@Sinan, We've been talking about photovoltaic solar panels. This is something different, this type of solar plants aren't very large in power output but they are very popular for small residential areas.
List of solar thermal power stations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
As you can see, Spain and Australia are the current leading countries in solar thermal energy production. For instance, this is PS10 in Seville, first of it's kind with 11 MW power output.

These are basically some mirrors put around a water tower(not necessarily water but oil, salts, air, nitrogen, helium, etc.) The reason they are popular is because they store thermal energy and are capable of generating electricity during night. They may not seem very efficient to you in the short term but if you add maintenance costs into account, such as production of nuclear fuel and conservation of spent fuel rods for a fvcking millenium you'll see.

Solar plants require no maintenance, no fuel and they have absolutely no waste output. However, Photovoltaic power plants can gather enough energy not just for residents but also for industrial purposes.
Photovoltaic power station - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is the future.

 

[Saithan]

I think it's a step in the right direction. If every citizen of Turkey was aware of the benefits, and clean energy, and they could install one for 1000 TL, I think Turkey would gain a lot, and have less energy dependancy.

 

[-SINAN-]

"Yenilenebilir enerji kaynakları, dış koşullara bağımlı olmaları (iklim koşullarına bağlı olarak her zaman yeterince güneş, rüzgar ve su kaynaklarının bulunmamas&#305 nedeniyle günümüzde halen yenilenebilir enerji kaynaklarından yeteri kadar verimli enerji üretimi sağlanamamaktadır. Bu noktada nükleer enerji, 7 gün 24 saat enerji üreten sürekli bir kaynak olarak önemini korumaktadır.

Ülkemizin 2023’te kurulu gücünün 110.000-130.000 MW arasında olması, elektrik tüketiminin 500 milyar kWh olması öngörülmektedir. Hidroelektrik potansiyelimize ek olarak rüzgar, güneş, jeotermal, biyokütle gibi yenilenebilir enerji potansiyelimizin tamamı kullanılsa bile 2023 yılına kadar ulaşacağımız 500 milyar kWh enerji tüketimimizin ancak yarısına yakını karşılanabilmektedir.

Dünya üzerinde üretilen elektrik enerjisinin sadece %2.8'i yenilenebilir enerji kaynaklarından üretilmektedir. "

http://www.enerji.gov.tr/yayinlar_raporlar/Nukleer_Santraller_ve_Ulkemizde_Kurulacak_Nukleer_Santrale_Iliskin_Bilgiler.pdf

 

[LegionnairE]

@Sinan crappy excuses mate. Germany's 2050 goal is to produce %100 of their electricity by renewable sources. You don't need to be a genius to figure out that we have more potential.

 

[tunguska]

This is good news for Turkey. Solar thermal power plant is good alternative in renewable energy sources. It is good compared to the solar photovoltaic plant as solar thermal power plant can be operated during Night also. But here I feel that plant built array capacity is small as it is only 5 MW. Normally this kind of power plant has size of 50 MWe.
Spain do have Solar thermal power plant but they are different than this and they are parabolic trough type of solar thermal power plant not CSP one.

 

[maniac@666]

congratulations turkish friends.

 

[-SINAN-]

@Sinan crappy excuses mate. Germany's 2050 goal is to produce %100 of their electricity by renewable sources. You don't need to be a genius to figure out that we have more potential.

Mate i'm mechanical engineer, my final project in the college was designing, modeling and producing a wind turbine. I know the importance of renewable sources.

There is a sentence in my previous post saying; even if we use the our full potential we can't generate the energy demand in 2023. That sentence is absolutely true. I think you are thinking like " This is bullshit if we cover all our land with wind turbines/solar panel we would generate folds than we needed" Well it's not like that.
There is a feasiblity factor. In example a wind turbine won't work under 5 m/s wind speed and above 15m/s. You have to take data from the site which you are are going to establish the wind turbine. And you have see that overall windspeed through out the year is stable. There is few places in Turkey that provides the necessity wind. There is a feasiblity factor for all renewable sources. In example in some of the middle and most of northern areas in Turkey forget photovoltatic panels which produces directly electricity, it is not even feasible to generate domestic hot water.

In Germany's case, they lent land from african countries and establish the solar farms there. And don't forget they have a economy that we can't match, they can afford it.

Another point is Germany is a developed country but we are still a developing country. Meaning their energy demands stays on the same level or have minimal growth. So they can simple switch to renewable sources. Whereas our energy demand will double in the next 10 years. We need to find an urgent and feasible system. Generating electricity from the Nuclear Reactors is the best possible answer for now.

 

[LegionnairE]

@Sinan I'm a software developer which is totally irrelevant to our discussion and

I think you are thinking like " This is bullshit if we cover all our land with wind turbines/solar panel we would generate folds than we needed" Well it's not like that.

I'm not stupid, I know that at this point we can't invest all our money on photovoltaic fields. But I know that we have potential, especially near Hatay-Mersin region. A few large-scale stations there could make an impact on the whole power grid. It is fvcking feasible, perhaps not as much as it is in Africa but it still is.

Ambitious plans for 5 gigawatt solar plant in South Africa Look what is happening around us, people are talking about GW-sized fields and we are yet to make a 5MW solar-thermal plant. This is fvcking unacceptable. I support the idea of nuclear plants if it will mean the end of coal and natural-gas-run Thermic plants especially the one in Muğla

We need to get rid of these, but we aren't a poor nation anymore, we could spend a couple of decades for R&D. Deals were rushed.

 

[-SINAN-]

@LegionnairE

All agreed except one.

212 Billion kWh in 2010
500 Billion kWh in 2023

Of course i agree with you with the R/D stuff. But we have to build something immediately that will give serious amount of energy to fill the gap. At the process if we can shut down some of our natural-gas-run plants that will be even better because we are throwing away so much money for natural gas.

This is all fault of the previous governments.

 

[Pboy]

Good news. I hope Pakistan also one day decides to focus more on solar power.

Congrats to all our turkish members.

 

[LegionnairE]

This is all fault of the previous governments.

We could use renewable sources as a stop-gap too. Turkey has the money to build any type of these plants. I don't give a sh.t whose fault it is. Back in the day, thermic plants were built because they were cheap to construct. We are making the same mistake all over again.

Turkey deserves better than this. Still, a bad policy is better than no policy at all.