Renewable EnergyRenewable Energy
Renewable EnergyRenewable Energy
The activity in the energy field mainly focuses on turbine design and manufacture for hydroelectric power plants. The implementation of functional and wear resistant components has become a trademark, which has been required all over the world.
BFR Group staff is able to consider each request providing customized solutions: technicians, who work inside the companies, put in each project a know-how which has been built in over 30 years of activity.
The company has acquired a deep knowledge in the solar fused salts CSP realizing the numerically controlled solar collectors of all the mechanical parts guaranteeing an optimal value on the concentration factor during the real operation of the collector.
Since the process is strongly influenced by the fluid (Sali Fusi), components have been studied and realized for all the needs of the solar field, specific valves for molten salts that reach 550 °.
Particular attention has been paid to the interconnection of the collectors, developing specific solutions that differ in terms of the type of string input / output connection, the connection between the manifolds and the junction between the two semi-strings. These solutions, fully tested after one year of operation, have allowed to eliminate spillages of salts outside, drain the whole circuit by gravity and eliminate twisting on the hoses.
The attention was then placed on both thermal and electrical insulation of the circuits, the solutions implemented eliminated the typical problems of traditional insulation on the stretched sections and markedly reduced the installation costs.
BFR Group is a partner in the construction of the first Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plant that works with molten salts at 550 degrees, inaugurated in Massa Martana (PG) on July 3, 2014.
In the industrial area of Perugia, Archimede Solar Energy (ASE) and Chiyoda Corporation have built the first demonstration system in the world that uses parabolic mirrors and molten salts as a heat carrier fluid, based on a concept provided by Enea, with Italian components and Japanese engineering work.
In thermodynamic solar systems, there are considerable advantages in using molten salts compared to diathermic oil, previously used in first-generation systems: first of all, they allow to reach higher temperatures and therefore better energy efficiency. Secondly, the molten salts improve the heat storage capacity of the plant which remains productive even during the night or time periods of low solar radiation, thus allowing a modulated supply of energy.
The plants around the world, which currently produce more than 2 Giga-Watts, are all based on heating the diathermic oil, which is highly flammable, polluting and also burns at a temperature of 440 degrees. The new experimental plant, on the other hand, produces energy thanks to the melting of the temperature salts up to 550 degrees, with continuity of operation even during periods of decline or absence of light. In addition, salts are a natural fertilizer, which makes storage operations environmentally safe.
The parabolic mirrors concentrate the rays on the tubes, inside which the molten salts flow: thanks to these tubes supplied by ASE, they allow to multiply the light intensity by 80 times. The salts are then stored in a high-temperature, thermally insulated deposit that retains heat for many hours: from there they are sent to the power plant, where a heat exchanger produces the steam that makes the turbine turn and they produce electricity through the generator.
The experimental plant of Massa Martana, built thanks to Italian companies, is meant to be an example and open the way to research on thermodynamics in molten salts, in order to promote the economy, bankability and reliability of parabolic-shaped systems.
