Dubai is Now Home to World’s Largest Concentrated Solar Power Project

Dubai is Now Home to World's Largest Concentrated Solar Power Project

Dubai has inaugurated the world’s largest concentrated solar power (CSP), which is in the fourth phase of the city’s Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park and entails the capacity of 950 MW.

The CSP project was unveiled by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

This phase employs three hybrid technologies – 600 MW from a parabolic basin complex, 100 MW from the CSP tower, and 250 MW from photovoltaic solar panels.

An investment to the tune of AED15.78 billion ($4.3 billion) has been made into the project. At a height of 263.1 m, it boasts the tallest solar tower in the world as well as the largest thermal energy storage capacity worth 5,907 megawatt hours (MWh).

Additionally, the project has 70,000 heliostats tracking the movement of the sun.

The solar park stretches to an area of 44 sq km. The Molten Salt Receiver (MSR) atop the solar power tower has an important role to play the project. It has more than 1,000 thin tubes making way for the absorption of sunrays and then, their transfer to the molten salt within these tubes. The solar radiation is then converted into thermal energy,”

The project will supply power to nearly 320,000 homes with clean and sustainable energy and curb carbon emissions by close to 1.6 million tonnes every year.

Noor Energy 1 was set up by a consortium by Dubai-based DEWA and Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power established as a project company for the construction and operation of the fourth phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park.

How does concentrated solar power work?

Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is a type of solar thermal energy that uses mirrors or lenses to focus solar radiation onto a small area to generate high-temperature heat. The mirrors or lenses focus sunlight onto a receiver, heating a fluid that is then used to produce steam and drive a turbine. The heat is then used to create steam, which drives a turbine to generate electrical power. The process can be repeated continuously because CSP technology can store the heat produced. It can therefore be used on days where there is no sun, or before sunrise and after sunset.

CSP systems can be combined with other power sources to create hybrid power plants.

In an earlier announcement, Australia-based Sunrise CSP (Concentrated Solar Power), a firm that designs, builds and operates industrial process heat and electricity generation plants that use concentrated solar thermal energy and India’s Engineers India Ltd (EIL) entered into an MoU for Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) projects in the oil and gas sector in India.

In April, the Kailash Cancer Hospital and Research Centre situated at Muni Seva Ashram in Goraj installed a solar concentrator. The technology has been installed by Australia National University and Sunrise CSP Australia. The solar concentrator is called Bigdish.