India's NTPC releases tender to build a CSP project integrated into a coal-powered plant

The National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd. (NTPC) has issued a tender for the provision of “design, engineering, manufacture, installation, testing and commissioning” services for the construction of a CSP plant.

The facility will be located inside the premises of the National Capital Power Station (NCPS) of the NTPC, at Dadri, in Uttar Pradesh state. The document sales close date is 5 May 2015.

For more information, visit this link: http://social.csptoday.com/tracker/market/india

STT commissions the first heliostat field in Saudi Arabia

Germany-based technology provider Solar Tower Technologies (STT) announced last week it successfully commissioned the first heliostat field in Saudi Arabia. It consists of 66 heliostats of 8 m² reflector area each, which have been installed at the solar tower test site of the King Saud University, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

King Saud University’s professor Dr. Hany Al-Ansary said the receiver was able to reach temperatures of more than 700 °C. Dr. Philipp Schramek, chief technology officer at STT, added that the proprietary heliostat field control system, which was jointly developed by STT and Bosch Rexroth AG, is suitable for fields “with several thousands of heliostats.”

STT has also developed 17 m² heliostats for utility-scale CSP plants. For any questions or enquiries, please contact Dr. Philipp Schramek at contact@stt.ag

India and South Africa among the world’s biggest investors in green energy, says German think-tank

South Africa is one of the biggest global investors in renewable energy (RE) projects, according to a report issued by the Frankfurt School for Climate and Sustainable Energy Finance.

The paper highlighted that 2014 saw the continuing spread of RE to new markets. “In 2014, Brazil (US $7.6 billion); India ($7.4 billion) and South Africa ($5.5 billion) were all in the top 10 of investing countries”, followed by Mexico, Chile, Indonesia, Kenya and Turkey, whose investments were in the $1 billion-plus region.

Other countries such as Jordan, Uruguay, Panama, the Philippines and Myanmar received investments in the $500 million to $1 billion range each.

“Much of the surge by developing economies over recent years has been thanks to investment in China. This raced up from just $3 billion in 2004 to $83.3 billion in 2014,” the report said.

Solar projects saw the largest surge: “overall investment was up 29% to $149.6 billion, while that in wind advanced 11% to a record $99.5 billion,” it said.

Recently, one CSP plant went live in South Africa, whereas two more projects achieved financial close and two more were announced by the country’s Department of Energy, under its Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP).

The first of them is KaXu Solar One, a 100 MW trough plant with 2,5 hours of molten salt-based storage, located in the Northern Cape region. Additionally, the two CSP plants that achieved financial close under REIPPPP’s Window 3 were the Xina Solar One and Ilanga I projects.

Similarly, the CSP projects that achieved preferred bidders status under Window 3.5 were the Redstone CSP project and the Kathu CSP project.

Oman’s public utility to procure 200 MW of solar capacity this year

According to a report published by the online magazine Oman Daily Observer, the Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP) may progress its 200 MW solar power project this year, subject to the introduction of a renewable energy policy in the Sultanate.

The OPWP is the sole procurer of the Sultanate’s power generation and water desalination capacity and announced their plans to tender “one or more solar-based power plants” near the towns of Adam or Manah, back in 2009. This update, however, was announced as part of the company’s “7-Year Statement,” issued on Sunday 6th April.

The document is a 7-year roadmap and covers the 2015-2021 period for power and desalinated water supply in the two main systems of the country, the Main Interconnected System and the Dhofar Power System.

The first plans included the launch of an Independent Power Procurement Programme, based on a combination of PV and CSP technologies. In the meantime, the OPWP has been collecting solar insolation data from two instrumentation stations located at the Adam or Manah sites.