On-Site Power Plants: Controlling Your Own Power Supply

Solar thermal distributed power plants provide power, heating and cooling for industrial and commercial locations. They complement central power and can be suited to office buildings, resorts, industry and hospitals.

Advantages of on-site power stations:

• Provide flexibility to respond to increased power demands
  
• Reduce dependence on central power and play an important role in energy security
  
• Offer stand-by power to institutions that cannot tolerate power stopages
  
• Cogenerate heat and power
  
• Can be planned and built quickly and are relatively cheap and easy to maintain

The solar field, which supplies the thermal energy, is a major component of the solar power plant. It generates steam through a heat exchanger. This steam in turn drives an ORC, or condensed steam turbine, and the turbine converts part of the power into electricity. In addition to electricity, the hot water that exits in the power block can be recycled to operate cooling machines or deliver industrial and domestic hot water.

The solar power stations can operate 24 hours a day with alternative fuels (biomass or gas) during non-daylight hours, thus extending their economic viability.