FRESNEL CSP

TECHNOLOGY
STATE OF THE ART AND
MARKET OVERVIEW
 A study produced by the project
Este estudo
DKTI-CSP foi elaborado
(German Climate no âmbito
Technology
do Projeto
Initiative onEnergia Heliotérmica,
Concentrating Solar
gerido através do Ministério
Power), which is managed by the da
Ciência,
Ministry Tecnologia e Inovação and
of Science, Technology
(MCTI) e da(MCTI)
Innovation Gesellschaft
and thefür Interna-
Gesellschaft
tionale Zusammenarbeit
für Internationale Zusammenarbeit
(GIZ) GmbH.The
(GIZ) GmbH. O Projeto
projectEnergia
focusses on
Heliotérmica tem o objetivo de
the promotion of climate technologies,
estabelecer
in particular os pré-requisitos
Concentrating para
Solar
aPower.
aplicação e disseminação
Its objective da that
is to ensure
Geração Heliotérmica no
required conditions to implementBrasil.
and disseminate Concentrating Solar
Power are established in Brazil.

Ministério da
Published by:
Projeto Energia Heliotérmica

Contact GIZ: Contact MCTI:

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale
Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
SCN Quadra 1 Bloco C Sala 1402
Ed. Brasília Trade Center
70711-902 Brasília - DF, Brasil
T +55 (61) 3963-7524
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Authors
Dr. Andreas Häberle, Stephan Scherer,
Michael Berger, Johannes Farian

Consultancy:
PSE AG
Emmy-Noether Str. 2
79110 Freiburg
www.pse.de
E-mail: info@pse.de
Tel. + 49(0)761 – 479 14-0
Fax + 49(0)761 – 479 14-44

Project coordination:
Torsten Schwab (GIZ)
Editor:
Florian Remann (GIZ), Ute Barbara Thiermann (GIZ)
Design:
Barbara Miranda

June 2014

This study has been elaborated by the project DKTI-CSP which is working in
the context of the German Climate Technology Initiative. The project is realized
by close cooperation between the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology
and Innovation (MCTI) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale
Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. The project aims at the creation of the necessary
prerequisites for the successful application and dissemination of Concentrating
Solar Power (CSP) in Brazil.
FRESNEL CSP
TECHNOLOGY
STATE OF THE ART AND
MARKET OVERVIEW

Ministério da
CONTENT

1 SUMMARY  8
2 WHAT ARE LINEAR FRESNEL COLLECTORS?  9
2.1 INTRODUCTION TO LINEAR FRESNEL COLLECTORS  9
2.2 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT  10
2.3 DESIGN OF LINEAR FRESNEL REFLECTORS  11
2.4 GEOMETRY AND REFERENCE AREA  15
2.5 OPTICAL EFFICIENCY  16
2.6 THERMAL EFFICIENCY  17
2.7 GROSS HEAT PRODUCTION  18
2.8 NET HEAT PRODUCTION  19
2.9 BENEFITS AND DISADVANTAGES OF FRESNEL COLLECTORS  19

3 MARKET SITUATION  22
3.1 TARGET MARKETS  22
3.2 FINANCIAL DATA  24

4 STATE OF THE ART  26

4.1 FOUNDATIONS  26
4.2 SUPPORT STRUCTURE  26
4.3 TRACKING UNIT  27
4.4 CONTROL UNIT  28
4.5 PRIMARY MIRRORS  28
4.6 RECEIVER  29

5 COMPANY PROFILES  31
5.1 FRESNEL TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES  31
5.2 EPC COMPANIES  40

6 TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT TRENDS  42

6.1 COLLECTOR COMPONENTS  42
6.2 COLLECTOR DESIGN  46
6.3 SYSTEM CONCEPTS  48
6.4 LONG TERM MARGINAL COSTS  48
7 REFERENCES  50
7.1 LITERATURE  50
7.2 ABBREVIATIONS  51

8 ANNEX - LOCAL SUPPLY OPTIONS

FOR FRESNEL SYSTEMS  52
8.1 FOUNDATION  52
8.2 SUPPORT STRUCTURE  52
8.3 CONTROL UNIT  52
8.4 TRACKING UNIT  53
8.5 PRIMARY MIRRORS  53
8.6 RECEIVER  53
 1 SUMMARY

Linear Fresnel Collectors are a solar thermal »Company Profiles« contains a list of all Fresnel
technology to produce heat by concentrating technology companies and EPC providers known to
sunlight to an absorber tube from which a heat the authors and describes some of them in more detail.
transfer fluid transports it to a consumer. This can
be a turbine to generate electricity or an industrialIn the final section »Technological Development
process. Trends« the authors give their view of which
technological developments are to be expected in
Linear Fresnel Collectors are a young technology. Fresnel collector technology in the near future or
First prototypes were built in the 1960ies. But only further down the road.
during the past decade a number of companies
started to commercially develop this technology
and realized a few projects.

This report introduces Linear Fresnel Collector

technology and its main players. The report
concentrates on the collector technology and only
briefly mentions related issues like system aspects
and the application potential.

Blue boxes at each chapter shall give a quick

overview of the chapter’s content.

A first section »What are Linear Fresnel Collectors?«

covers the theoretical technical background. Fresnel
reflectors are derived from the parabolic trough
design. This is why this study sometimes refers to
parabolic troughs while explaining details of the
Fresnel design.

The section »Market situation« describes the present

economic situation of this young technology.

In »State of the Art« again technological issues are

highlighted and it is described where the technology
stands today.

8
2 WHAT ARE LINEAR
FRESNEL COLLECTORS?
2.1 INTRODUCTION TO LINEAR
FRESNEL COLLECTORS
Fresnel collectors belong to the family of
concentrating solar power (CSP) technologies.
They use mirrors to concentrate sunlight and by
doing so generate heat for direct use in industry
or for generation of electricity.
A Fresnel collector consist of several long flat
mirrors which follow the sun’s movement and
reflect the sunlight to a line above the mirrors,
where an absorber tube is fixed, see Figure 1.
Figure 1: schematic of a Fresnel collector with secondary reflector
Similar to heliostat fields in tower projects, Linear
Fresnel reflectors allow for a much bigger aperture
area per unit of receiver compared to the ideal
reflector i.e. the parabolic trough. The mechanical
size limits of ideal reflectors (due to wind load and
weight) are similar for each individual heliostat as
for a trough. The beauty of heliostat systems is of
course that the aperture size of a complete system is
independent of the size of the individual reflectors.
This means the individual heliostats can be small
but jointly cover a big aperture area. The drawback
of heliostat systems is a lower optical efficiency per
Linear Fresnel Collectors are a group of linear
concentrating collectors. They use linear receivers
and reflectors, which are segmented in single axis
tracking heliostats. The reflector segments are
typically aligned horizontally and track the sun such
that the receiver is illuminated without need to be
moved (see Figure 1).
reflector area, mainly due to interference between
individual reflector segments, which by principle
can only approach the optical efficiency of an ideal
(i.e. non segmented) reflector geometry.
Whilst solar towers, dishes and parabolic troughs
were subject of continuous research and
development during the past decades it is only
since late in the 1990ies that linear Fresnel concepts
are again on the agenda of a few companies and
research groups worldwide.
9
 2.2 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT Francia reported temperatures of 450°C and direct
steam generation. A few pilot installations from
other groups followed in other parts of the world
Augustin Jean Fresnel (1788-1827) invented the but none of them are known to be operated for a
principle of the so called Fresnel Lenses. Giovanni longer time. Technical problems with these projects
Francia transferred the general principle from are speculative. One might be the underestimation
lenses to reflectors and developed a first of the efforts to reach and maintain sufficient
prototype Fresnel collector in 1964. tracking precision.
It took until 2006 that first commercial plants
have been constructed. At the end of the 1990ies two groups restarted the
development of linear Fresnel collector technology:
the Australian Solar Heat and Power (SHP¹) and
Linear Fresnel Collectors are named after Augustin the Belgian Solarmundo² . A new company called
Jean Fresnel (1788-1827), who among many other Novatec Biosol³ entered the field in 2006 and could
things developed refractive lenses, with the same soon announce the first 1,4 MW linear Fresnel system
focal length but using a fraction of the material to feed electricity into the electric grid (see Figure 3).
compared to standard lenses. With Fresnel collectors
we find the similar principle of segmenting the The commercial rational behind linear Fresnel
optical device but applied to a reflecting parabolic collectors compared to parabolic troughs for CSP
mirror rather than a refracting lens. applications is an expected advantage in cost
reduction potential due to their simpler design,
A first prototype linear Fresnel collector is which shall compensate for their lower optical
documented from the Italian researcher Giovanni performance.
Francia in 1964 (see Figure 2)

Figure 3: PE 1 Project of Novatec Solar GmbH

A different market segment is addressed for the

application of concentrating solar collectors in
the field of industrial process heat. Here it can be
Figure 2: From Giovanni Francia (1911-1980) private archive necessary to mount the solar collectors on rooftops,
¹ SHP was later renamed AUSRA, and then AREVA Solar
² Solarmundo was later transferred to Solar Power Group
10 ³ Novatec Biosol was later renamed Novatec Solar
which highlights the importance of low wind
loads and high ground usage factors compared
to the application in CSP projects. The company
Industrial Solar GmbH already installed a number
of such rooftop linear Fresnel systems, mostly for
solar cooling applications but also for direct steam
generation (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: rooftop mounted Fresnel collector by Industrial Solar

GmbH for a Solar Cooling system at the technical university of
Seville, Spain.

Figure 5: Tracking principle: for a change α of the incident angle

2.3 DESIGN OF LINEAR FRESNEL
REFLECTORS
Linear Fresnel collector design follows the
objective of harvesting as much energy as possible.
It is an optimization procedure which includes the
tracking system (i.e. movement with the sun), the
geometry of reflectors and the receiver.
all primary mirrors have to be turned by α/2
In contrary to parabolic trough collectors, the
angle between sun, mirror and absorber is
changing all the time. Therefore, tracking control is
done in open loop with an astronomic sun position
algorithm, to calculate the set point angles of the
mirrors at each moment.

The general design idea behind Fresnel reflectors

is to cut a parabolic reflector into pieces, align
the pieces horizontally and let them track the sun
individually. While the sun position moves across
the sky during the day, the absorber stays fixed, and
the primary mirrors have to be turned slowly in one
axis, to reflect the direct sunlight on the absorber at
every moment.

11
 When looking a little closer it becomes obvious
that for an optimum design the reflector segments
are not part of the same parabola but belong to
parabolas with bigger focal lengths the farer off
center the reflector segment is located (see Figure 6).

y
sun rays

focal point

focal lenght of parabol n

reflector n

Figure 6: ideal Fresnel reflectors for perpendicular irradiation

12
Furthermore the ideal shape of the heliostats
changes when tracking the sun, because ideally
they are different segments of different parabolas
for different sun angles. The parabola segments are
close to the optical axis for near normal reflection
but far off-center for high reflectance angles.
Ideally each reflector should be able to take on the
shape of segments of parabolas with different focal
lengths and at a varying distance to the optical axis
(see Figure 7).

y sun rays

focal point

reflector n focal lenght of parabol n

optical axes

Figure 7: ideal Fresnel reflectors for off-normal incidence

When practically constructing a linear Fresnel

collector one needs to compromise with the
ideal geometrical design in order to stay within
reasonable efforts for realization. Ideally it is e.g.
necessary to adapt the shape of the individual
reflectors with different inclinations. A fixed shape
will lead to an optical error called astigmatism for
any incident angle other than the design angle.
The art of engineering is thus to find the optimum
compromise of effort for construction and material
and overall performance.

13
 An interesting effect for the sun tracking principle
is that for each heliostat the incremental tracking of
mirrors is identical as long as the turning axis of the
heliostat is in the reflecting plane (see Figure 8 and
Figure 9). For practical use this means that with a
simple mechanical coupling of neighboring mirrors
it is possible to track a complete mirror field with
only one actuator.

Figure 8: tracking by individual drives per row.

Figure 9: tracking by one drive with mechanically coupled mirror rows.

14
2.4 GEOMETRY AND REFERENCE
AREA
The collector’s efficiency is affected by optical
losses which depend on the collector’s geometry
and the geographic position.
It is important to define the reference area of the
collector when discussing efficiencies.
When discussing performance and efficiencies it is
important to define a reference area. For parabolic
trough collectors the reference area is defined as
the projection of the reflector shape. It would be
nice to find a similar definition for a linear Fresnel
collector. However the projection of the reflector
shape of a Fresnel reflector changes with the
incident angle so this definition would not be
practical. A compromise was found by defining
the aperture width of a Fresnel collector as the
sum of the projections Ai of its primary reflectors
when turned horizontally (see Figure 10). While the
aperture area serves as reference area for efficiency
and heat production figures, the gross area B still is
an important figure for planning and engineering
of such plants. The height h of the collector is then
defined as the height of the center of the absorber
above the primary mirror fields.
Figure 11: cosine losses, shading and blocking of neighboring reflectors
Figure 10: aperture width A= ΣAi and gross width B of a Fresnel
collector. The difference between A and B is the sum of the gaps
Σdi. The height of the Fresnel collector is typically defined as the
height h of the center of the absorber tube above the primary
mirror field.
The typical optical performance of a Fresnel collector
with respect to aperture area as defined above is
lower than that of a parabolic trough with identical
material parameters. This is not surprising given the
approximate character of the Fresnel approach.
Optical losses are caused by the effect that the
aperture area is not perpendicular to the incident
rays and thus the active area is diminished by
the cosine of the incident angle of each reflector.
Structural shading by support structures and mutual
shading and blocking of the reflectors are the other
major optical loss factors (see Figure 11).
15
 2.5 OPTICAL EFFICIENCY ideal conditions (e.g. with 100% clean primary and
secondary reflectors and receiver glass tube).

The optical efficiency is an important, but not
the only indicator of a successful collector. It
depends on the direction of the direct sunlight:
typically 55% - 65% at the zenith position,
0% with horizontal sunlight and complex
intermediate values depending on the function
of the »incidence angle modifier« (IAM).
The optical efficiency η of a Fresnel collector
depends on the incidence angle of direct solar
irradiation. By definition η0 is the optical efficiency
at normal incidence (i.e. sun in zenith) and under
The angular dependence of optical performance is
described by the bi-axial incidence angle modifier
(IAM). It is defined as the ratio of optical efficiency
at a certain angle of incidence and the optical
performance at perpendicular irradiation. Figure
12 gives an example for the bi-axial incident angle
modifier of a linear Fresnel collector in longitudinal
and transversal direction, referred to direct normal
irradiation (DNI). Typical for this kind of collector is
the zigzag shape of the transversal IAM, which is
caused by the shadow of the receiver moving across
the primary mirrors one after another and the gaps
in between them.

projected zenith angle (transversal or longitudinal) [º]

Figure 12: typical incidence angle modifier (IAM) of a linear Fresnel collector, referred to direct normal irradiation (DNI).

16
2.6 THERMAL EFFICIENCY difference between the absorber temperature and
the ambient.

The thermal efficiency is another important

factor: the lower the thermal loss, the better is
the thermal efficiency of the system. Typical
values are 50% to 65% thermal efficiency. With A being the aperture area and ΔT the
temperature difference between absorber
temperature and ambient.
The heat losses Qloss of the thermal fluid in a solar
collector are due to radiation, convection and With these heat losses, the thermal efficiency
conduction mechanisms and can be described for perpendicular radiation can be displayed in
by a parabolic dependency on the temperature characteristic curves, as in Figure 13.

Characteristic curve of a linear Fresnel collector

Figure 13: Characteristic collector curve of a linear Fresnel collector.

17
 2.7 GROSS HEAT PRODUCTION
The gross heat production of the collector
is a theoretical value which helps to compare
different collector designs and different
geographic locations. It is usually simulated by
special software.
It must be kept in mind that the efficiency curve
is only valid for perpendicular irradiation which in
most places of the earth never occurs. Even between
the two tropics the sun is exactly perpendicular
only in two moments per year. This means that the
power output of a collector at a given site can only
be estimated by combining the efficiency curve,
the angular dependency (IAM) and the orientation
with the geographical position, the corresponding
radiation data and the operation temperature. This
is too much to do by hand but can be conveniently
achieved with the help of simulation programs. As
result, the expected yearly gross heat production
for a given site gives a good base for comparing
different collector designs or models from different
manufacturers.
1800 1673
1631
1600
1400
1200
kWh/(m²a)
1000
800 779 737
600
400
200
0 0%
Recife Fortaleza
DNI [kWh/(m²a)]
Figure 14: Comparison of yearly gross heat production (GHP) and yearly efficiency for different installation sites in Brazil, calculated
with an operating temperature of 200°C. The absolute numbers differ a little from manufacturer to manufacturer, but the relative
differences of different places stay the same.
18
The gross heat production shows the amount of
theoretically and ideally producible heat in the
collector, including only the heat losses inside the
collector, but without any start-up losses, outer
piping losses or other system losses. For a economic
feasibility analysis, the net heat production (see
Chapter 2.8) is a more reliable figure.
The gross heat production for different places can
vary due to various reasons. The geographic latitude
has an impact on the efficiency, so that places in
between the tropics are best suited in terms of
efficiency. The climate has a strong influence simply
by the amount of insolation, so dry and sunny
climates are best suited. Microclimatic characteristics
(e.g. close to big cities) can influence the heat
production of a concentrating solar collector, where
a high concentration of aerosols and vapor in the air
reduces the amount of direct irradiation. Another
influence is due to the orientation of the collector,
which can differ by up to 10% from optimal (usually
north-south oriented) to worst orientation. Also
the operation temperature influences the results in
terms of heat losses (see Figure15).
50%
1536 45%
1412
1358 40%
35%
30%
25%
625 20%
542 559
15%
10%
5%
Rio de Janeiro Brasília Porto Alegre
GHP [kWh/(m²a)] yearly efficiency
 900 50%
802 791
800 779
750
45%
716
700 678 40%
635
35%
600
kWh/(m²a)

30%
500
25%
400
20%
300
15%
200 10%
100 5%

0 0%
150 175 200 250 300 350 400

Operation Temperature [°C]

Gross Heat Production yearly efficiency
Figure 15: Dependency of the yearly gross heat production (GHP) and yearly efficiency on the operation temperature for the
example of an installation site in Recife.

2.8 NET HEAT PRODUCTION 2.9 BENEFITS AND DISADVANTAGES

OF FRESNEL COLLECTORS

For an economic analysis of a project, the net

heat production is more significant than the Fresnel CSP is a promising solar technology with
gross heat production. It is the useful heat that a lot of technical and economic advantages.
comes out of the whole system. Like the other solar technologies, it makes
use of the clean and free sun and reduces the
dependency on fossil fuels.
In order to calculate return-on-invest times for Fresnel CSP has several advantages compared
a specific case study, system losses have to be to other CSP technologies. The benefits of
considered, which i.e. can consist of start-up losses, lower production costs, lower wind load, better
piping losses, blow-down losses. For this level of cleaning and less thermal stress compensate the
detail in calculation, a detailed specification of the fact that the performance per m² is not as high
system to be considered is needed, which usually as e.g. with parabolic trough CSPs.
can only be done after a first engineering and
design of the whole system.
When discussing pros and cons of different collector
technologies it is important to differentiate
between commercial and technical objectives. The
following discussion shall look at technical specifics

19
 of Fresnel collectors, while presuming a reasonable compared to parabolic trough plants by a factor
commercial collector design. of approx. 1.5.

With respect to parabolic trough collectors, the • Cleaning of mirrors

main features of a Fresnel collector are: is one of the most important O&M factors for
• Stationary receiver performance and cost. The basically flat primary
with a stationary receiver there is no need for mirrors and the possibility to position all primary
flexible hoses or ball joints to connect the receiver. reflectors horizontally offers the advantage of an
Still the receiver ends will move due to thermal easily accessible surface that can also be cleaned
expansion. The maximum movement depends by robots with very little water consumption.
on the maximum operation temperature and the
overall length of the receiver. This daily movement Of course also some disadvantages of Fresnel
can easily be several meters, with a receiver collectors need to be considered:
length of many hundred meters. However the • Lower optical performance
respective compensators are standard industrial shading/blocking of the primary reflectors lead to
equipment a reduced optical performance per aperture area.

• Illumination from underneath • Higher tracking accuracy

the receiver is always illuminated from
underneath, no matter of the sun angle. This
means that the thermal stress to the receiver
doesn’t change its direction throughout the day.
In particular, there is no thermal stress that leads
to a sideward bending of the receiver.
The illumination from underneath is an important
advantage for direct steam generation, at least
for those flow patterns where the constant
cooling of the upper part of the tube cannot be
guaranteed (stratified flow or slug flow).
needed the movement of the reflected beam
of a heliostat is twice the angular movement of
the heliostat itself. This means that for the same
concentration ratio a Fresnel reflector needs to
be controlled twice as precisely as a trough and
also the reflector shape needs to be accordingly
more accurate.
• The yearly energy production per installed
capacity is lower, which compensates partly the
effect of a higher capacity per ground area.

• Low wind load In the end the above mentioned technical

low wind load is considered an advantage
because it directly leads to slimmer and more
lightweight mechanical structures, less influence
by wind during operation and fewer damages
due to high wind speeds.
advantages translate into commercial benefits,
which need to compensate the commercial
drawbacks that result from technical disadvantages.
It is thus a multidimensional optimization procedure
that finally leads to a highly competitive technology.

• High ground usage 2.9.1 Typical performance values

the optimum design of a Fresnel reflector
carefully adjusts all geometrical parameters
like height of the receiver, distances between Although commercially offered Fresnel collectors
the mirrors, the mirror size itself, the number of differ in many details, some performance
mirrors etc. The resulting design typically has parameters are quite similar for all.
a higher thermal peak power per ground area

20
Commercially offered Fresnel collectors differ in
their target application (see section 3) and also
in many technical details. Some of these will be
discussed in the following sections (4 and 5).
However, some performance parameters are quite
similar for all Fresnel collectors. Typical values for
these parameters are given in the following.
• Nominal thermal power and thermal
efficiency at operation point
depends on optical efficiency, sun position
and thermal losses at operation temperature. A
typical value for the nominal power is 550 W/m² at
900 W/m² DNI and 200°C operation temperature;
a typical value for the nominal efficiency is
55% - 65 %. The optical efficiency depends on
longitudinal and transversal sun position (see
Figure 12, p. 17); the thermal efficiency depends
on the HTF temperature and solar irradiation (see
Figure 13, p. 18)
• Overall concentration factor
it is important to be precise with the definition
of the geometric concentration. Based on the
ratio of aperture area and circumference of the
absorber pipe, typical values are between 25
and 50. If the definition is instead based on the
diameter of the absorber pipe the value would
be higher by a factor of 3 (π to be precise).
• Thermal losses in W/m
of course depend on the receiver type and
temperature difference. Typical values are in the
range of 50 W/m and 450 W/m absorber length.
• Maximum operation temperature:
for superheated steam is in the range of 540 °C.
• Maximum wind speed during operation and
survival wind speed
typical values are 25 m/s and 50 m/s
• Tracking accuracy
a typical value is to be better than max. 0,1°.
• Installation time
typical values for bigger CSP plants are 20 man
minutes per m² aperture area
• Collector weight
a typical value is approx. 25 kg/m² aperture area
without foundations.
• Material for support structure
mostly the structure is made of steel. Material
for the mirror backside structure is also most
often steel; sometimes aluminum is used as well.
Reflectors are mostly made of glass mirrors,
• Cleaning concept for reflectors and absorber
typically, for bigger plants autonomous robots
are used (see Figure 29: Novatec Solars cleaning
robot [source: www.youtube.com]). Water
consumption 0,03 l/m² per cleaning cycle
• Specific auxiliary power consumption
a typical value is 1 Wh/m²/day
• Maximum degradation of total system
performance per year
a typical value is 0,2 % per year.
• Design of absorber support at “cold and
warm end”
this is typically done with moving supports and
flexible hoses.
21
 3 MARKET SITUATION

3.1 TARGET MARKETS in power blocks of many hundreds of MW power

(see Figure 16). Fresnel companies try to catch
up in this field with the prominence of trough
There are two main applications for Fresnel technology in terms of operation experience and
technology: the large scale electrical power consequential bankability.
generation and process heat for industry. In
both applications, the first commercial plants Most probably direct steam generation will be the
are successfully operating. predestined choice for linear Fresnel collectors but
other heat transfer fluids (like molten salt) are also
worthwhile to be considered for this technology
Fresnel collectors are currently developed with at least until latent or chemical heat storages are
two main markets in mind: the large scale solar available in sufficient commercial scale to provide
generation of electricity and the direct use of solar suitable storage for direct steam generation.
generated heat in industry.
In areas with water scarcity it will be important to
3.1.1 Large scale Power generation use low water consumption technologies. This
means that the heat rejection will be designed
The presently most interesting market is the large with dry cooling towers and low water consuming
scale generation of electricity (CSP). Very large automated cleaning devices will be applied for the
collector fields generate steam to drive turbines cleaning of the basically flat Fresnel mirrors.

Figure 16: principle CSP components including gas fired backup. (source: http://www.areva.com/EN/solar-232/arevasolarapplications.html)

22
The main economic competition for large scale CSP space heating, cleaning or washing. Operating
is the traditional power generation in fossil fired temperatures between 100°C and 250°C can be
power plants. However, there is also competition found typically in the food, textile or chemical
among renewable technologies and especially industry and up to higher than 1.500°C are used e.g.
Photovoltaic power generation has shown a for metallurgical processes.
tremendous price reduction over the past few years,
which is a challenge for CSP to compete with. A major share of that heat is at temperatures
below 400°C and thus in a temperature regime
3.1.2 Industrial process heat that is accessible for state of the art solar
thermal technologies. However, compared to
The other target market is the provision of solar other applications of solar thermal collectors,
generated process heat for industrial production concentrating or not, it is still the least developed
processes and the generation of cold. Also small with the fewest realized projects.
scale Cogeneration (CHP) or Polygeneration systems
can be classified within this market of “industrial When looking at process heat applications it should
process heat” and will become more and more be noted that not only are the typical temperature
interesting in future. levels for industrial process heat lower than those
for power generation, but also the power range is
Industrial process heat is still a much less developed smaller. Typical systems can be as small as only a few
market for solar technologies compared to CSP hundred kW and mostly don’t exceed several MW of
but it will eventually offer a substantial commercial peak thermal power. Of course there are exceptions
potential. but a general rule is that the typical process heat
project is much smaller than the hundreds of MW that
Process Heat accounts for approx. 2/3 of the are planned for power generation. The conclusion of
final energy consumption of industry in Europe lower operation temperature and smaller plant size
(Ecoheatcool, 2006). Industry uses heat in a wide is that smaller collectors can be used, which are also
temperature range starting as low as 50°C e.g. for suitable for rooftop installation (see Figure 17).

Figure 17: Fresnel collectors for solar process heat generation and their integration in industry building [source: Industrial Solar GmbH]

23
 A study of the IEA’s joint SHC task 33 and SolarPACES
Task 4 “Solar Heat for Industrial Processes”
extrapolated the solar potential for industrial
process heat from 5 European countries and derived
the total solar thermal potential for Europe to be
100 to 125 GWth (see Table 1).

Country Industrial Heat Solar Process Heat Solar Process Heat Solar Process Heat Potential
Demand (PJ/year) Potential (PJ/year) Potential (GWth) (Mio. m² collector area)
Austria 137 5.4 3 4.3
Spain 493 17 5.5 - 7 8 – 10
Portugal 90 4 1.3 – 1.7 1.9 – 2.5
Italy 857 31.8 10 14.3
Netherlands 46 1.95 0.5 – 0.7 0.8 – 1
EU 25 6,881 258.2 100 - 125 143 - 180

Table 1: Industrial heat demand and solar process heat potential for selected countries and for EU25 (adapted from Vannoni
et al., 2008)

While the first pioneering projects are known from
the 1970’s it was not until the first decade of the
new century that a number of start-up companies
defined industrial process heat as their target
market and developed appropriate new products,
mostly small parabolic trough collectors and some
Fresnel collectors.
3.2 FINANCIAL DATA
Also Fresnel companies are presently not in a state
to give detailed information about price structures
of their products because still every project under
discussion needs individual engineering and they
cannot yet define standardized of the shelf prices.
Information on three Fresnel CSP plants, which
have been realized recently, indicates a price level
of approx. 3,0 - 5,5 €/Wel for the investment costs
of the solar field or 0,02 - 0,03 €/kWhth for the
thermal output.

In order to compensate for their lower
performance, Linear Fresnel collectors must
reach approx. 55% of the cost target per m²
compared to parabolic trough collectors.
3.2.1 Built Examples
The available information about price structures
of Fresnel projects is not sufficient to be seriously
published within this report. Worldwide there are
too few projects realized and those realized typically
do not reflect market prices.
3.2.2 Economic comparison with para-
bolic trough collectors
An extensive study by Morin et al. (2012) compared
the theoretical electricity generation costs for Linear
Fresnel (LFC) and for Parabolic Trough (PTC) CSP
plants. PTC is the most commercial CSP technology
to date and is therefore regarded as the benchmark.
For the LFC, cost data are hardly available. Therefore,
the break even cost is determined, where cost-parity
with the electricity generation with a PTC reference
plant is reached.

24
The study varied the assumptions on collector
performance and operation and maintenance costs
to reflect different designs of LFC technologies. The
calculations were carried out using cost and hourly
simulation performance models.

The LFC principle of arranging the mirrors

horizontally leads to lower aperture-related optical
efficiency which must be compensated by lower
cost per m² of aperture compared to PTC. The LFC is
a collector with significant cost reduction potential,
mainly due to cheaper mirrors and structural
advantages.

Depending on the assumptions on optical and

thermal performance as well as O&M costs, the
aperture-specific investment cost of the LFC field
must range between 28% and 79% relative to
PTC field cost in order to reach the break even. A
reasonable mean value is 55%.

The relative cost figures depend on the definition

of the reference surface which is aperture and not
mirror surface (nor land use). The mirror surface
of PTC is approximately 10% higher than the PTC
aperture. For LFC, aperture and mirror surface are
almost equal. The aperture area was chosen as the
basis for the comparison due to the established
definitions of aperture for both LFC and PTC. The
affordable break even costs of LFC would be higher
in case the mirror surface was selected as the
reference for both technologies.

25
 4 STATE OF THE ART

Every Fresnel collector comprises six major Currently, there are two main foundation designs
components: foundation, support structure, for ground mounted Fresnel collectors. Whereas
primary mirrors, control unit, tracking unit and the most of the existing prototypes as well as realized
receiver consisting of absorber tubes and optionally projects have concrete foundations, we expect
a secondary reflector. earth screws to be used more frequently in the
future, where they are applicable.
In the following a special chapter is dedicated to
each of these major components. Advantages of earth screws are lower cost and a
smaller environmental impact (Anne Jaulain et
al., 2012). Another advantage of earth screws is
4.1 FOUNDATIONS quicker installation compared to foundations made
of concrete. On the other hand the applicability of
earth screws may be limited by high wind loads,
The collector is usually fixed to the ground by difficult soil conditions, and corrosive environment
concrete foundations. An increasing number of like inshore installations.
plants use earth screws instead.

Figure 18: left side picture: Soltigua, Italy: concrete pointfoundations [source: Soltigua, presentation 1st “insun”-project workshop,
Rapperswil, 20130304]. Right side pictures: earth screws, easy and cost efficient foundations with minimized environmental impact
[source: Krinner Produktkatalog; Novatec Solar AG]

4.2 SUPPORT STRUCTURE

A metal support structure carries the receiver in
several m height and also the mirror field close
to the ground.
The structure supports the mirrors, their bearings
and the drives for tracking as well as the receiver.
The structure marks the boundaries of the mirror
field. Additional elements of structure can be used
as maintenance walk ways and pipe ways.

26
Figure 19: Typical structure design types.

Three typical design types can be found: a pylon 4.3 TRACKING UNIT
structure, where a central pole carries the receiver
and is stabilized by steel cables (see Figure 3, p. 9).
This structure is the lightest of the three. The so There are two concepts for tracking the mirrors:
called A structure (see Figure 4, p. 10) is made of (a) Each mirror row is moved by its own motor
rigid steel beams as is the rectangular structure (see and control or (b) neighboring mirror rows are
Figure 20 below). The latter two are more material mechanically coupled and share a drive.
intensive but easier to install compared to the pylon
structure.
Two principle tracking concepts are pursued for the
precise positioning of the mirrors according to the
movement of the sun during the day

For PE1 and PE2, among the first commercial Fresnel

type solar thermal power plants, Novatec Solar AG
used coupling rods to couple several mirror rows
together (see principle at Figure 9, p. 14). However,
most of the other systems use single mirror row
drives (see principle at Figure 8, p. 14).

Figure 20: rectangular support of the »Fresdemo« collector

installed by Solar Power Group at the Plataforma Solar de Almería
in Spain

27
 Figure 21: left side picture: Novatec Solar’s prototype with connecting rod for coupling of multiple mirror rows. Right side picture:
Feranova: single mirror row drives [source: feranova.com]

Single mirror row drives lead to more flexible
control and mirror positioning. One advantage of
this are free configurable positions like stowing
upside down, maintenance position, storm position,
cleaning position, or in general: 360° of individual
turning range for each row. The mechanically
coupled ones on the other hand move larger areas
of primary mirrors with one drive and are therefore
expected to be less costly.
its geometric position in relation to the actual sun
position. Sensors measure the real position and
allow the control unit to compare the real and the
theoretically wanted position.
A central control unit is used by the system operator
as interface to control the operation strategy
i.e. start-up and shut down or maintaining fixed
operation temperatures etc.

4.4 CONTROL UNIT 4.5 PRIMARY MIRRORS

Open loop control positions the individual The primary mirrors – the long flat mirrors
mirrors. A central control takes over start-up and which reflect and concentrate the sunlight to
shut down procedures and is used as interface the receiver above – are the largest component
for the system operator. of the collector. They are typically made glass,
glass laminates or aluminum sheets and a steel
or aluminum backside structure.
A big solar field needs an intelligent integration and
cabling of all sensors and actors over long distances.
The use of modular and decentralized sub systems 4.5.1 Primary mirror reflectors
with local intelligence in field switch boards nearby
the drives can reduce the need of cabling to the The actual state of available Fresnel collectors shows
central control. monolithic glass mirrors as well as glass-glass-
laminates and aluminum sheets. The choice of the
An open loop concept is used for the positioning reflector material has a strong impact on the design
of the primary mirrors i.e. the ideal positioning of of the backside structure of the primary mirrors.
each mirror is calculated by taking into account

28
4.5.2 Primary mirror backside structure
The backside structure of the primary mirrors has to
fulfil several functions:
• carry the weight of the mirrors,
• compensate the torque caused by turning long,
coupled rows of primary mirrors,
• bear the wind forces on the primary mirrors,
• in case of glass mirrors: compensate different
thermal length expansion of glass and metal,
• in case of using flat glass: compensate the force
of bending the flat glass into shape.
As there are multiple options of industrial mass
production for structural parts to hold the mirror,
various concepts are realized and permanently
optimized. The dominating concepts are sheet-
metal structures (see Figure 22), welded framework
structures (see Figure 23) or single torque tube
designs (see Figure 34, p. 52).
Figure 22: sheet metal design [source: Novatec Solar, homepage
march 2008]
Figure 24: Typical structure design types of the receiver.
Figure 23: Space frame [Source: Ausra Solar homepage October 2008]
4.6 RECEIVER
The absorber is the main component of the
receiver of a Fresnel collector. It is usually a steel
tube in the focus line of the reflected sunlight
above the mirrors and converts the sunlight into
heat. Absorbers need a good heat insolation,
and in some designs make use of a secondary
reflector which helps focusing all sunbeams on
the absorber.
Depending on their application, different
heat transfer fluids are used: For electricity
production: thermal oil or steam; for industrial
heat: pressurized water, steam or thermal oil.
The receiver is the part of the collector to convert
the collected light into heat. The main component is
the absorber. A heat transfer fluid is needed to carry
the heat to the application. Some receiver designs
also use secondary reflectors.
29
 4.6.1 Absorber

The absorber of a linear Fresnel collector is typically

a selectively coated single steel tube or a bundle
of steel tubes. The majority of manufacturers use
single tube receivers with one absorber pipe of
larger diameter and a secondary mirror to reflect
spilled light rays back onto the absorber tube.

Heat losses are reduced by enclosing the receiver

in an insulating cavity with a transparent cover
facing towards the primary reflectors. Alternatively Figure 26: receiver design single tube with secondary reflector
a vacuum tube similar to the receivers of parabolic and glass cover underneath [Novatec Solar]
trough collectors can be used. Evacuated absorber
tubes are widely used, because they are already 4.6.3 Heat Transfer Fluid
long-term-proven in parabolic trough collectors
and hence available on the market in good quality For industrial process heat applications, Fresnel
with the advantage of low thermal losses. collectors - as well as other concentrating collectors
- are being operated at lower temperatures (mostly
4.6.2 Secondary Reflector <250 °C), heat transfer fluids are pressurized water,
direct steam or thermal oil, depending on the
Design concepts with single absorber tubes use customer’s request for the operation temperature.
secondary mirrors to reflect those rays back onto While pressurized water is common as heat carrier
the absorber tube that missed it in the first place. in the temperature range up to around 220 °C,
Either thin aluminum sheet metals or mirrored glass thermal oil is preferred at temperatures above 250
reflectors are chosen as mirror material. °C. Steam on the other hand is used as heat carrier
especially where steam networks of existing plants
Non-imaging optics allow for an additional are already installed and solar installations are
concentration via the secondary concentrator by a added to safe fuel cost.
factor of approx. 2. In other words the target area of the
receiver is enlarged, which reduces the requirements Power plant Fresnel collectors currently generate
on optical precision of the primary reflectors. steam directly in the absorber tubes, but first
systems using a direct molten salt (DMS) concept
are currently being installed.

Figure 25: receiver design multi tube [AREVA]

30
5 COMPANY PROFILES

5.1 FRESNEL TECHNOLOGY

COMPANIES

Fresnel collector technology providers are a At present we find companies in very different stages
very young industry with a few market leaders of technological development of linear Fresnel
and many startup companies in all stages of technologies. In Table 2 all companies known to the
development. authors are listed¹.

Name Country www

AIRA Termosolar Spain www.airatermosolar.es/
Alsolen France www.alsolen-alcen.com/fr
AM Brain Germany www.am-brain.de/
Areva Solar USA/France www.areva.com/EN/solar-220/areva-solar.html
BBEnergy South Africa www.bbe.co.za/energy/solar/
Chromasun USA www.chromasun.com
CNIM France www.cnim.com
Elianto CSP Italy www.eliantocsp.com
FERA Srl Italy www.ferasolar.it
Feranova Germany www.feranova.com
Fresnex Austria www.fresnex.com
Glayx Tech Italy www.glayx.com
Heliodynamics UK www.heliodynamics.com
Himin Solar Energy Group China www.himin.com
Hitachi Zosen Japan www.hitachizosen.co.jp/english/
news/2013/04/000876.html
Industrial Solar Germany www.industrial-solar.de
INERSUR Spain www.inersur.com
KGDS Renewable Energy India http://solar.kgisl.com
Private Limited (KGDS)
Lanzhou Dacheng China www.lzdcsolar.com/en/
Mulk Enpar India www.mulkre.com
Novatec Solar Germany www.novatecsolar.com
SkyFuel USA www.skyfuel.com
Solar Euromed SAS France www.solareuromed.com
Solar Power Group Germany www.solarpowergroup.com
Solar Space Frame Thailand http://solarspaceframe.com/CLFR.htm
Industrial
Soltigua Italy www.soltigua.com

Table 2: alphabetical list of producers for linear Fresnel collectors

31
 Out of the above list the authors selected 7 Reference projects:
companies, which they rank as advanced with • 2004 coal-fired power plant in Liddell with solar
respect to volume or number of Fresnel CSP projects augmentation. Second phase of Liddell in 2006.
realized or under construction. These companies • 2008 Kimberlina, Bakersfield, CA; 5 MWel,
are described in more detail in the following. superheated steam in 2010
• 2013 Sundt Solar Boost project, Tucson, AZ; 5
MW power augmentation for coal-fired power
plant
• 2013 Kogan Creek project; 44 MW power
augmentation for coal-fired power plant
• 2013/2014 Reliance Power, Dhursar, Rajasthan,
5.1.1 Areva Solar India. 2 x 125 MWel.
Company Areva Solar
Website www.areva.com/EN/solar-220/
The California based Areva Solar is the only company
areva-solar.html using a non evacuated multi-tube receiver type.
Fresnel product Collectors for CSP, only in big It applies a once through direct steam concept
installations to produce superheated steam. With approx. 30
Height of collector 27 m above mirror level m installation height the Areva collector is by far
Width of collector 106 m the tallest and with the Rajasthan project Areva
Receiver type Multi tube, glass pane also took the lead with respect to totally installed
underneath, no secondary reflector area.
reflector
Number of mirror 33 In Albuquerque, NM, Areva operates a test loop with
rows per string molten salt as heat transfer fluid (HTF) and develops
Mirror width 2,2 m the concept of Direct Molten Salt (DMS).
Aperture area tracked 300 m²
by one drive
Staff in Fresnel /CSP >100

Figure 27: Areva Solar: Rajasthan plant [source: http://www.powermag.com/]

32
Figure 28: Areva Solar: Rajasthan plant [source: http://www.powermag.com/]

33
 Reference projects:
• 2009 PE 1, Puerto Errado, Spain, 1,4 MWel
• 2012 PE 2, Puerto Errado, Spain, 30 MWel
• 2012 Liddell, Australia, integration in coal plant,
5.1.2 Novatec Solar 9 MWth
Company Novatec Solar The most actual plant design of the German company
Website www.novatecsolar.com
Novatec features superheated steam at max. 540°C,
100 bar with the collector model »Supernova«. The
Fresnel product Collectors for electicity
generation and process heat collector model NOVA-1 is designed for the direct
Height of collector 7,4 m above mirror level production of saturated steam and uses a single
non-evacuated absorber tube with secondary
Width of collector 16,56 m
reflector and glass pane underneath.
Receiver type Saturated steam: single absorber
tube, glass pane underneath,
secondary reflector A Direct Molten Salt test loop is under construction
Number of mirror Superheated steam: single and shall start operation in April 2014.
rows per string absorber tube with evacuated
glass envelope, secondary Novatec reports a 99.9% availability of their PE2
reflector plant in 2013. It operates fully automated with a
Mirror width 16 »one single push button startup«. Cleaning of the
Aperture area tracked 0,7 m primary mirrors is realized with a cleaning robot
by one drive
(see Figure 29).
Staff in Fresnel /CSP 256,8 m²
45 Novatec gives cost figures for solar steam in the
order of 2 to 3 €cent / kWh at sites with good DNI.

Figure 29: Novatec Solars cleaning robot [source: www.youtube. Figure 30: Novatec Solars 30 MWel plant PE2 [source: www.
com] novatecsolar.com]

34
 Industrial Solar offers their collectors solely for
process heat for industry and solar cooling projects.
The favored HTF is water, either in a pressurized
water circuit or in a direct steam generation
5.1.3 Industrial Solar configuration to directly deliver saturated steam
Company Industrial Solar to the customer. Thermal oil as HTF is also offered
Website www.industrial-solar.de
if higher temperatures are needed by the customer.
Fresnel product Collectors for industrial process
heat The favored design principle is roof top installations
Height of collector 4m on industry buildings (see Figure 17). All collector
components can be handled without heavy
Width of collector 7,5 m
machinery, which is an important factor for rooftop
Receiver type Single evacuated tube with
secondary reflector installations. The production of primary mirrors
Number of mirror 11
happens on site with local staff.
rows per string
Mirror width 0,5 m Industrial Solar is the company with the highest
Aperture area tracked 24 m² number of Fresnel-projects realized worldwide.
by one drive Starting in 2005 they installed projects in Germany,
Staff in Fresnel /CSP 16 Italy, Spain, Tunisia, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and South Africa.
45

Figure 31: Industrial Solar installation on industry rooftop [source: Industrial Solar GmbH]

35
 5.1.4 CNIM CNIM operates a demonstrating module with 360
Company CNIM kWth in La Seyne-sur-Mer since 2010.
Website www.cnim.com
A first demonstration plant is to be built during
Fresnel product Turnkey power plants
summer 2014 with startup expected at the end
Height of collector na
of 2014. A first commercial plant (9 MWel) in the
Width of collector na
Cerdagne region / France is under development
Receiver type Single tube non evacuated with
(PPA signed with French government since summer
secondary reflector and glass
pane underneath 2012). Erection is planned for 2015/2016 and
Number of mirror 14
commissioning in 2016.
rows per string
Mirror width 1m
Aperture area tracked 900 m²
by one drive
Staff in Fresnel /CSP 15

Figure 32: CNIM [source: http://solarmap.bertin.fr/la-seyne-cn1.aspx]

36
5.1.5 Solar Euromed SAS Solar Euromed is a French family owned company
Company Solar Euromed SAS based in Dijon. »Augustin Fresnel« is the name
Website www.solareuromed.com
of their 250 kWth first prototype built in 2012. A
special feature of the collector design is that the
Fresnel product power generation and industrial
process heat mirror backside structure is made of an extruded
Height of collector na aluminum profile (see Figure 22).
Width of collector na
»Alba Nova 1« is a 12 MW project planned to be
Receiver type single tube non evacuated with
secondary reflector. installed in Corsica.
Number of mirror 12
rows per string
Mirror width na
Aperture area tracked na
by one drive
Staff in Fresnel /CSP 50

Figure 33: Solar Euromed prototype (source: www.solareuromed.com)

37
 5.1.6 Feranova

Feranova is a German based company, which

uses sandwich mirrors made of aluminum and an
evacuated tube receiver. A first pilot plant was built
in 2013 in Turkey at a cement factory.

Figure 34: primary mirrors [source: http://pronova-energy.com/]

Figure 35: Feranova installation in Turkey 2013 [source: www.fernaova.com]

38
5.1.7 Soltigua

Soltigua is an Italian family owned company who In 2012 Soltigua won a European Commission
built their first Fresnel prototype in 2010. funded industrial process heat demonstration
project at a brick manufacturing company in Italy.
They use a non-evacuated single tube absorber The project comprises an aperture area of 2.640
with secondary reflector and published a thermal m2, one part with thermal oil as HTF (ca. 1000 m²)
efficiency of 52 % (Tin 165 °C, Tout 180 °C, 900 W/ commissioned 2012, one part with direct steam (ca.
m2 DNI, Tamb 30°C); [source: “Parabolic or Fresnel?” 1600 m²) commissioned 2013.
article on www.soltigua.com/download/, may 2011].

Figure 36: Soltigua’s process heat project for brick manufacturing in Italy [www.soltigua.com/]

39
 5.2 EPC COMPANIES
Most of the existing Fresnel CSP plants were
planned and constructed by the technology
providers themselves. Another option is to
contract an EPC (Engineering procurement,
construction) company. There are several EPCs
for CSP technologies (see list below). However,
only few have Fresnel experience.
EPC (engineering, procurement, construction)
companies often act as the main contractor in the
international turn-key power plant business. Also
for CSP projects, EPCs are a viable option. In reality,
however, most CSP power plants – in particular
the small scale plants – are usually realized by the
technology providers themselves and do not make
use of an external EPC. All solar technology providers
listed in section 5.1 above also offer EPC contracts.
The most important EPC companies with specific
background in CSP are listed in the following table :

Table 3: List of EPC (engineering, procurement, construction) companies with CSP experience
Name Country www
Abener / Abengoa / Teyma Spain www.abener.es, www.abengoasolar.com,
www.teymausa.com
Acciona Spain www.acciona.com
Bechtel US www.bechtel.com
China Huadian China en.chec.com.cn
Cobra Spain www.grupocobra.com
Comsa emte Spain www.comsaemte.com
Elecnor Spain www.elecnor.com
Fichtner Solar GmbH* Germany www.fichtnersolar.com
Habtoor Leighton Specon Dubai habtoorspecon.com
Kraftanlagen München Germany www.ka-muenchen.de
Lauren US www.laurenec.com
M+W Group Germany www.mwgroup.net
Orascom Egypt www.orascomci.com
Sener Spain www.sener.es
Solar Reserve US www.solarreserve.com
TSK Flagsol Germany www.Flagsol.com

* Engineering company with Fresnel experience, not an EPC

Generally, most EPC companies with CSP experience more in detail – the only external EPC for a recent
in other technologies than Fresnel will likely be able commercial Fresnel plant worldwide they know
to carry out successful Fresnel CSP projects. of. Fichtner Solar GmbH, although not an EPC but
an engineering company, will also be described
The authors selected M+W Group to be presented because of its dedicated Fresnel experience in
recent projects.

40
M + W Group Fichtner Solar GmbH

M+ W Group (www.mwgroup.net) is the most Fichtner Solar GmbH is an independent German

prominent Fresnel EPC. It developed and constructed
the Fresnel CSP plant PE1 in Murcia / Spain together
with Novatec as technology provider. M + W Group
is owned by the Austrian Stumpf Group and is active
in many areas such as electronics, photovoltaics, life
science or automation. M + W’s headquarters are in
Stuttgart / Germany.
engineering company with major involvement in
Fresnel CSP projects. The services include feasibility
studies, conceptual designs, technical due diligence,
preparation of specification and tender documents,
contract negotiation, project management during
construction, performance / operations monitoring
and verification of project completion.

Some features of M + W Group: Some company features of Fichtner / Fichtner Solar

• Offers services in parabolic trough and Fresnel GmbH:
technology • Favourite power range: from 1 to several
• Favourite power range: 1-30 MW hundred MW
• Offers EPC also for industrial heat • Offers services also for industrial heat projects
• Staff no: 8000 (total group) • Staff no: total 1800, solar 20-35
• Turnover 2012: over € 2bn • Turnover 2012: total € 200m, solar € 6-15 m
• Office in Sao Paolo, Brazil, M+W Brazil Ltda. (estimated)

41
 6 TECHNOLOGICAL
DEVELOPMENT TRENDS

the design of the most material and cost efficient

Much effort and a lot of research and development foundation solution for each project.
are invested to further improve Fresnel collectors
and their economic feasibility. While ground mounted systems already use various
The following dominating objectives can be approaches for cost efficient foundation systems,
observed: the integration of Fresnel collectors with industrial
- Costs decrease for components and systems buildings for process heat application will likely
due to standardization and economies of scale bring some developments in future.
- Increasing degree of local manufacturing
- Reduction of material use (steel) It can be expected that integrated engineering of
- Rising operating temperatures to improve industrial buildings and collectors will result in an
turbine efficiencies integrated support structure where e.g. the major
beams of the building are at the same time the
foundation of the collector.
This chapter is focused on the technological
development trends of Fresnel collectors within the 6.1.2 Support structure
coming 1, 3 and 5 years (immediate / near future /
eventually in future). Up to now various design concepts can be found
for Fresnel collectors with the three given in section
Concentrating solar collectors as well as systems 4.2 being the dominating ones. Independent from
consisting of them are topics of various research and the different design approaches (bigger systems
development activities. Some of these activities are for ground mounting, smaller systems suitable for
related to concentrating solar collectors in general, roof mounting) the companies develop individually
mainly in the field of materials development (mirrors, towards more accuracy and simplification of the
mirror surface treatment, optimized surfaces of design. A driving objective is the reduction of
absorber tubes), general system layout, power material and shading.
block, heat transfer fluids and storage concepts.
Although these activities are not »Fresnel-only«, Two interesting new approaches are shown in the
selected ones will also be included in this chapter. pictures below. While the slinge bridge design
seems to be strikingly light, it will have to prove its
long term stability and precision for the mounting
6.1 COLLECTOR COMPONENTS of the receiver.

The collector comprises six major component

groups: foundations, support structure, tracking
unit, control unit, primary mirrors and the receiver
which consists of absorber tubes and optionally a
secondary reflector.

6.1.1 Foundations

In general, the foundations will be optimized for

each project, depending on local needs. Different
soil conditions as well as wind loads will lead to Figure 37: slinge bridge-design [Source: ALCEN]

42
The design of a space frame for the receiver 6.1.4 Control Unit
mounting is a straight forward approach to bridge
large distances. Its cost efficiency remains to be In the near future, more and more common industrial
proven. control systems (e.g. Siemens, Allen Bradley) will
be used because of better availability and simpler
interface design between collector control and
system control of the customer (e.g. an industry
park with demand of industrial process heat).

Up to now only open loop controls have been

realized. It can be expected that in future also
concepts with closed loop controls will be seen.

6.1.5 Primary Mirrors

Primary mirror reflectors

Figure 38: space frame [Source: solarspaceframe.com]
The actual state of available Fresnel collectors shows
6.1.3 Tracking unit monolithic glass mirrors as well as some glass-glass-
laminates and aluminum sheets. Many alternative
Concerning the tracking mechanism, two main reflectors are presently subject to investigation of
principles can be distinguished: on the one hand specular reflectivity and reliability for 30 years of
there are concepts with many small sized drives outdoor use. The choice of the reflector material
which need little space and power and are cheap has a strong impact on the design of the backside
(per drive). On the other hand there are concepts structure of the primary mirrors.
with fewer drives. These are bigger and more
expensive (per drive) but probably cheaper in sum. In the near future we will see a variety of different
They need more space when integrated in the concepts, including aluminum front surface, thin
mirror rows, which leads to bigger mirror gaps. In glass and polymeric reflectors. On the longer term
some cases, more rigid mirror support structures we will also find surface coatings with self-cleaning
are needed when a big amount of mirrors is coupled and/or highly scratch resistant properties.
mechanically.
Primary mirror backside structure
It can be expected that in the coming years
specialized component suppliers will appear The primary mirrors contribute the biggest share
on the market to provide adapted solutions for to the material and weight of a Fresnel collector.
Fresnel tracking. Therefore this is a central issue in improving the
design and reducing the cost.

The existing and established concepts will be

further refined with the general objective to achieve
higher accuracy of the mirrors at lower material and
production cost. Another objective is to apply more
local manufacturing to reduce transportation costs.

43
 Figure 39 shows an extruded aluminum backside structure, which might become worthwhile with higher production rates.

6.1.6 Receiver diameter and a secondary mirror to reflect spilled

Secondary reflector
Design concepts with single absorber tubes use
secondary mirrors to reflect light rays back to the
absorber tube which missed it at first. Either thin
aluminum sheet metals or mirrored glass reflectors
are chosen as mirror material. The present individual
developments of the suppliers aim at higher
reflectivity and mechanical resistance.
light rays back onto the absorber tube.
Evacuated absorber tubes are widely used, because
they are already long-term-proven in parabolic
trough collectors and hence available on the market
in good quality. Further developments of the
evacuated tubes are only made by the manufacturers
/ suppliers themselves. Improvements are made in
thermal stability of selective coatings as well as in
optical and thermal efficiency of evacuated receivers.

One development idea on the longer run aims at Some work is also done to improve the coatings of
integrating fully or partially the secondary reflector non-evacuated tubes or multi-tube receivers such
inside an enlarged evacuated glass envelope. that they withstand high operation temperatures.

Absorber materials and design It can be expected that some new manufacturers
/ suppliers of evacuated and non-evacuated tube
Areva Solar is the only established manufacturer receivers will appear on the market in the near future.
using multi-tube receivers with absorber pipes of
small diameters, and without secondary reflectors For solar thermal power plants, Fresnel collector
for their direct steam generating power plant manufacturers develop towards higher temperatures
collectors. On the other hand, Areva Solar is also of up to 600 °C for increased turbine efficiency.
doing steps towards receivers for a direct molten Vacuum absorber tubes with high temperature
salt concept. In this case, they are planning to use resistant, selective coatings are used to reduce
evacuated tubes and secondary reflectors [Areva thermal losses (Novatec and Areva). As heat carrier
Solar, Solarpaces 2012]. inside the absorber, direct steam generation (DSG)
as well as direct molten salt (DMS) concepts are
The majority of collector manufacturers use single currently under investigation (Novatec and Areva).
tube receivers with one absorber pipe of larger

44
Figure 40: left side picture: evacuated absorber tube for superheated steam [Source: Novatec Solar presentation, 4th Saudi
Solar Energy Forum, 9th May 2012]. Right side picture: multi tube absorber [Source: Areva Solar].

Figure 41: DMS idea of Areva Solar with multiple evacuated absorber tubes and secondary reflectors

For industrial process heat applications, Fresnel
collectors - as well as other concentrating collectors
- are being operated at lower temperatures (mostly
<250 °C). Heat transfer fluids are pressurized water,
direct steam or thermal oil, depending on the
customers’ requests for the operation temperature.
While pressurized water is common as heat carrier in
the lower temperature range below220 °C, thermal
oil is preferred at temperatures up to 350 °C. Steam
on the other hand is used as heat carrier especially
where steam networks of existing plants can be
incorporated.

45
 Figure 42: left side picture: receiver of Industrial Solar’s Fresnel collector using a vacuum absorber tube [Source: foto in Doha, 700 kW
solar cooling installation, November 2010]. Right side picture: vacuum absorber tube in a process heat collector [Sources: Industrial
Solar GmbH, Schott Solar].

6.2 COLLECTOR DESIGN

Aperture The concept of the Compact Linear Fresnel Collectors

is to alternate the allocation of neighboring primary
No major improvements of the aperture design are mirrors with multiple receivers (see figure below).
expected in the short term as there are already good The concept has not been commercialized up to
and proven designs available. Minor optimizations to now, even if there are some investigations made in
avoid/reduce shading and blocking will take place. this approach.

Figure 43: Schematic of Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector (Source: Montes 2012)

46
Other theoretical optimizations are proposed by
Chaves and Collares-Pereira (see Chaves 2010),
which we might find realized in future. However,
an optimized aperture design, e.g. the approach to
achieve higher optical efficiency due to optimized
mirror width, optimized distances between the
mirrors, adjusted curvatures of each mirror row and
others often has economic drawbacks in terms of
land use, investment costs for production means
and logistics.
Material
Spare parts are those parts that are replaced in case
an error occurs, e.g. drives, sensors, pumps, valves,
PLCs, UPS.
Cleaning
Compared to other solar systems, the developments in
cleaning of Fresnel collectors are already advanced due
to the simplified design with long and uniform rows
of flat mirrors. There are already automated cleaning
robots available with minimized water consumption
[Novatec Solar], other suppliers will follow.

The future development will lead to an optimization Eventually surface treatment of the primary mirrors
with regard to material use (kg/m²) in general. Most will lead to less adhesive surfaces with reduced
probably we will see adapted designs for areas with cleaning needs (self-cleaning surfaces)
high wind loads (shore).
Standardization
Production
Standardization is an ongoing process and
Higher production volumes will lead to more concentrating solar systems can use the benefit of
automation and mass production parts, including the standardization of already mass market solar
better quality assurance. More and more local systems, e.g. a standardized evaluation of EN/ISO,
productions are expected. This will reduce SRCC or »Solar Keymark«. Standardization is an
transportation cost and lead to higher local value essential issue to allow the comparison of different
creation. technologies and products, thus helping project
developers and customers to decide on a reliable
Installation and transparent information base.

Installation will become easier and faster due to Commissioning

simplified design with fewer parts. Technology
transfer will allow local workforce to install the Up to now, commissioning is often done on the base
systems instead of highly trained specialists. of a performance guarantee. This will stay to be the
preferred option for the next years and eventually
Maintenance be replaced by contracting models i.e. the delivery
of heating service instead of hardware.
In terms of maintenance a differentiation will be
made between wear parts and spare parts. This will have an effect on suppliers, EPC-contractors
and customers and lead to completely new business
Wear parts are those parts that have to be replaced models with regard to financing.
after a defined operation time: gaskets, belts, maybe
bearings and expansion joints.

47
 6.3 SYSTEM CONCEPTS cloudy days and better power forecasts (for grid-
connected CSP plants).
6.3.1 Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF)
Better understanding and better forecast of
For CSP, all bigger installations use direct steam transient behavior at cloudy weather, together with
generation (DSG). There is a trend to superheated the storage concepts, will lead to an optimized way
steam in actual projects and the two biggest to sell the electricity in the near future.
Fresnel-CSP-companies both are doing strong
research on Direct Molten Salt- Systems. CO2 as a In the field of industrial process heat, more
Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF) is not under investigation standardized interfaces to customers control
in the moment. systems will soon simplify their integration in
industry parks.
For process heat applications, the choice of the
HTF strongly depends on the customers’ system 6.3.4 System concepts for power
for easy integration in the processes: pressurized generation
water, DSG and thermal oil are possible HTFs and
are industrial standard. As for all conventional power plants, the power
block efficiency rises with increased turbine
6.3.2 Storage efficiency. Storage integration as well as hybrid
systems are strongly under investigation and have
For CSP, storages get more and more important to already been successfully realized (e.g. with the
supply base load. An increasing number of projects integration of a Fresnel plant in a coal fired power
will include molten salt storages, sometimes used plant in Liddell, Australia).
in combination with Direct Steam Generation (DSG)
in the collector, sometimes with Direct Molten Salt 6.3.5 Standardization of system
(DMS). It is expected that molten salt concepts by concept for process heat
DMS will lead to 10 % cost reduction compared to
molten salt storage with DSG. The eventual breakthrough of solar process heat in
all industry branches with heat demand will lead to
For process heat applications, PCM (phase change standardized systems with different heat transfer
materials) are more and more under investigation, fluids for modular power ranges, with back-ups
while hot water storages are state of the art for and/or with storage, and for different temperature
a wide range of temperatures as well. It can be and pressure levels.
expected that the first demonstration projects with
large scale PCM storages will be realized in the near
future and specialized suppliers in the field of PCM 6.4 LONG TERM MARGINAL COSTS
storage will appear on the market.
It can be expected that with an expanding CSP market
6.3.3 Operation the share of costs for the collector procurement
will approach marginal costs in the range of the
Development in this topic will lead to more material cost. The share of collector investment
automated operation with less staff. Research is costs compared to other cost components of a
done in the field of improved transient behavior at project will become less dominant.

48
Without giving an absolute cost indication at this
point it can be stated that solar generation of heat
with concentrating collectors will then be the most
economical heat generation technology.

49
 7 REFERENCES

7.1 LITERATURE

Julio Chaves and Manuel Collares-Pereira, Etendue-matched two-stage concentrators with multiple receivers,
Solar Energy 84, pp. 196-207, 2010

Ecoheatcool (2006), Work Package 1, The European Heat Market, Final Report, IEE ALTENER Project, Euroheat
& Power, Belgium.

A. Häberle. Fresnel Solar Energy Collectors, in Robert A. Meyers (ed.), Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science
and Technology, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0851-3, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

A. Häberle. Industrial process heat and solar cooling. in K. Lovegrove, W. Stein (Editors). Concentrating solar
power (CSP) technology, Developments and applications, Woodhead Publishing Ltd., 2012

Anne Jaulain et al., Life Cycle Analysis: A decision support tool for environmental and Cost Reduction of a Fresnel
Solar Plant, SolarPACES 2012.

M.J. Montes, Analysis of Linear Fresnel Collectors Designs to Minimize Optical and Geometrical Losses,
Solarpaces 2012

G. Morin, J. Dersch, W. Platzer, M. Eck, A. Häberle. Comparison of Linear Fresnel and Parabolic Trough Collector
power plants, Solar Energy, Vol. 86, 2012

Manmeet Narula and Philip Gleckman, Areva Solar, SolarPACES 2012, Marrakech, Morocco, 2012

Rabl. A, Active Solar Collectors and their Applications. Oxford University Press, New York, 1985

Silvi, C. The Pioneering Work on Linear Fresnel Reflector Concentrators (LFCs) in Italy. Proceedings SolarPaces
2009, Berlin

Vannoni C, Battisti R and Drigo S (2008). Potential for Solar Heat in Industrial Processes, IEA Task 33/IV.
Available from www.iea-shc.org.

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7.2 ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviation Full term

CLFR Compact linear Fresnel reflector
CSP Concentrating solar (thermal) power
DMS Direct molten salt
DNI Direct normal irradiance in w/m2
DSG Direct steam generation
EPC Engineering, procurement, construction
HTF Heat transfer fluid
IAM Incidence angle modifier
LCOE Levelized cost of electricity
LFC Linear Fresnel collector(s)
LFR Linear Fresnel reflector
O&M Operation and maintenance
PCM Phase Change Material
PTC Parabolic trough collector(s)

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 8 ANNEX - LOCAL SUPPLY OPTIONS FOR FRESNEL SYSTEMS

This appendix gives a short specification of the

main components, which are necessary for a Fresnel
collector based CSP or process heat system. The
description of specific characteristic requirements
and necessary manufacturing skills should facilitate
the assessment of manufacturing possibilities
in Brazil. A lifetime of at least 25 years in outdoor
conditions is a common condition to all below listed
components.

8.1 FOUNDATION

Challenge: low cost, cost optimization in regard to

local conditions (wind, soil, corrosive environment)
Component/part Key raw material Specific requirements Skill requirements
concrete steel, concrete basic technical equipment
Earth screws steel basic technical equipment

8.2 SUPPORT STRUCTURE

Challenge: mechanical stiffness, adjustable to reach

high accuracy, low weight, easy assembly, low cost
Component/part Key raw material Specific requirements Skill requirements
pylons, frames standard steel basic technical equipment

8.3 CONTROL UNIT

Challenge: low cost, reliability in harsh conditions

Component/part Key raw material Specific requirements Skill requirements
central control PLC, switchboard high durability and availability, therefore standard technical
unit and interface typical standard parts from industrial control equipment for industrial
to customer systems /e.g. Siemens), standard software control and automation
and protocols (e.g. CANopen, Profibus, …) systems
sensors optical/magnetic high precision, high durability advanced technical
encoders or equipment
inclination sensors
cabling Copper, electrical high durability in outdoor use standard technical
insulation equipment
safety chain safety limiters, flow Follow local legal safety requirements at high
switches, UPS temperatures and pressure levels, especially
with steam systems

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8.4 TRACKING UNIT

Challenge: low cost, high accuracy, high durability,

low maintenance
Component/part Key raw material Specific requirements Skill requirements
drives (1 axis) electric motors high precision (better precise and high quality manufacturing
than 0.1° accuracy), high
durability
Mounting and Bearings, belts, shafts, high precision, high precise and high quality manufacturing
transmission parts gear boxes durability

8.5 PRIMARY MIRRORS

Challenge: high reflectivity, zero to low degradation,

low weight, low cost
Component/part Key raw material Specific requirements Skill requirements
glass Low iron tempered high reflectivity and durability glass technology
glass
coatings paint high durability against abrasion (sand, hail), chemicals
humidity, aerosols (urban locations) or salt
(inshore) and UV, due to outdoor use
adhesives chemicals high durability, compatibility with backside adhesive technology
coatings
backside steel, aluminum high stiffness, good durability, low weight advanced technical
structure equipment

8.6 RECEIVER

Challenge: high efficiency (low heat losses), high

temperatures (400 - 500°C)
Component/part Key raw material Specific requirements Skill requirements
coated steel tube steel, coating pressure resistance, good welding, low standard technical
thermal losses (low emission in infrared equipment for steel tubes,
spectrum, high absorption in visual coating technology
spectrum), low degradation at high
temperatures, no lamination
secondary aluminum Resistance against temperatures > 120 °C,
reflectors high specular reflectivity
glass cover glass high light transmission, thermal expansion glass technology
concept in combination with steel tube

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Ministério da