Case studies

Case studies Solar power

Case studies Solar power

	Title
	La Junquera and Cañada del Tollo solar parks inaugurated in south-east Spain Spain is one of the most important solar markets in the world. This Mediterranean country passed an Electricity Feed Law in 2004, thereby giving an important initial boost to the renewable energy market. While there was approx. 37 megawatts of installed photovoltaic capacity in 2004, this quadrupled to more than 150 megawatts by 2006. Hamburg-based Epuron, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Conergy, has also grown in line with this trend. In 2004, the company took on employees in Madrid and Alméria to begin its activities in the areas of photovoltaics and solar heating. The team, now consisting of 30 solar experts, connected several large-scale photovoltaic projects in the Murcia region and Andalusia to the public grid in 2007, including the solar-tracking 1.6-megawatt "La Junquera" plant in Caravaca de la Cruz, the 1.55-megawatt "Loja" solar park and the 2-megawatt "Cañada del Tollo" tracking plant close to Aledo in November. Overall, these plants are producing around 9.5 million kilowatt hours of solar energy each year, enough to supply approx. 2,800 four-person households. Epuron developed the La Junquera and Cañada del Tollo projects in strategic cooperation with Panergia, a local project development company.
	Africa's largest solar power plant, located in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, starts feeding electricity into the grid Africa's largest solar power plant, located in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, has started feeding electricity into the grid. juwi Solar GmbH from Bolanden in Rhineland-Palatinate constructed the turnkey facility, which incorporates 4,000 thin-film modules from the module manufacturer First Solar. Stadtwerke Mainz AG, the public utility company in Mainz, is the contractor and operator of the 250-kilowatt power plant. This project has been the motivation behind its setting-up of the "Energie für Afrika" (Energy for Africa) Foundation. This foundation should provide the basis for other partners developing such projects also. The revenues from the sale of the electricity from the "Kigali Solaire" solar power plant to the state energy provider Electrogaz shall be used to repair and maintain the power plant. Surpluses shall be spent directly on financing new projects in Rwanda. This is just the first stage in the operation as the "Kigali Solaire" solar power plant will be upgraded in the medium-term to one megawatt of electrical capacity.
	Rural Electricity Provision in Tanzania with Photovoltaic and Bioenergy Solar hybrid systems: new perspectives for rural electrification and regional economic development The lack of electricity in rural regions of is one cause of the insufficient economic development in certain countries. Outside of the major towns and cities the only source of electricity is diesel generators. In the face of drastically rising costs for crude oil and the decreasing supply of this resource, this form of electricity provision results in a restriction of ?s economic development in the long term. The Cologne-based company Energiebau Solarstromsysteme GmbH and InWEnt - Internationale Weiterbildung und Entwicklung gGmbH have jointly developed a concept for rural electrification in on the basis of renewable energies, and carried out a successful reference project with the German Energy Agency dena. The above parties successfully built a hybrid solar system in the of in , with the participation of the local population. The new technology combines a solar power unit with a traditional generator run on oil that the local population sources from the jatropha nut, an inedible crop. The Energiebau specialists returned from Mbinga/Tanzania at the end of August 2006, having successfully completed the project. The power unit now provides electricity from renewable energies for the facilities of the Vincentian Sisters in Mbinga, with more than 140 people in twelve building complexes, 80 km away from the south-Tanzanian town of .
	Solar Energy for 40,000 households On 11 February 2006, Boulder City in the US state of Nevada saw the groundbreaking ceremony for the solar power plant "Nevada Solar One". 19,300 solar receivers of the SCHOTT technology group will form the heart of the 64-megawatt power station. "Nevada Solar One" should be linked up to the grid in June 2007 and will then supply electricity to 40,000 households. The use of solar energy rather than fossil energy sources to produce electricity in "Nevada Solar One" will result in a reduction in the amount of greenhouse gases that harm the climate equivalent to the pollutants discharged by one million cars.   The construction of the power station in Nevada is regarded in expert circles as an initial ignition for the global breakthrough of thermal solar energy production. Further projects in the southwest of the USA, in Spain and other sunbelt regions are being planned. The high-performance receiver developed by SCHOTT in 2004, with markedly improved quality, will be used in Nevada. With this device, SCHOTT, according to its own statements, advanced to become the international technology leader in this key component for parabolic trough power stations. At present, the company is expanding the industrial serial production of receivers at its site in Mitterteich, Bavaria, where it can benefit from its long experience as a leading manufacturer of special glass tubes as well as its know-how relating to coating technology and glass-to-metal seals.
	Parabolic trough power plant in Andalusia, Spain Power and heat production using solar cells and solar collectors has long since become an important part of national heat and power production in many industrial nations. However, this is not the case in many developing countries and emergent economies, and even in some of the wealthier countries in the subtropical "sun belt" of the world. But exactly these regions would be ideal for the efficient use of solar power plants operating in the megawatt range. Operating these major solar energy plants can be economically viable, often representing the most interesting option for power generation without affecting the climate.
	Light for Non-Electrified Regions An estimated two billion people around the world have no access to a mains electricity supply. Solar Home Systems, small solar power systems independent of the mains supply, can secure a basic electricity supply for lighting and operating electric appliances, and are becoming a tried and trusted model for electrifying rural areas. For the majority of people in the world's poorest countries, however, even this alternative is too expensive.
	Rural electrification using solar home systems (SHS) in Namibia The Republic of Namibia is a geographically large, sparsely populated country on the southern Atlantic coast of Africa. With an area of 825,418 sq km, Namibia is the 31st largest country in the world. The oldest desert in the world, the Namib, stretches along the entire western coast.