We are pleased to announce the incorporation within the advisory board of the BACTOFUEL project to TEWER. TEWER is a Spanish engineering company integrated by experts in product development, manufacturing, power plants engineering and construction, assembly of complex systems, verification and monitoring procedures, and project management.
Within BACTOFUEL project, they will give us the advice and support for the development of the photocatalytic process to convert H2O into h2 using the sunlight, to optimise the conversion through increasing the energy captured by using solar concentrators. Their experience in the field will help the project to build the technology and define the next steps towards commercialisation.
TEWER provides customers with solutions that are based on proprietary Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technologies, augmented with PV, and hybridized with other sources as required. TEWER has participated in the development and construction of some of the most representative CSP projects worldwide, such as the 110 MW Crescent Dunes project near Tonopah in the Central Nevada Desert or the 100 MW Parabolic Trough Power Plant in Urat, Inner Mongolia.
Tewer has made a strong commitment to R&D since its creation, especially in the area of renewable energies. Its collaboration with the R&D programs began with a project supported by the CDTI in the Neotec call, the Sophia project, which was followed by the PhoTon project, a European project of the Eurostars call led by Tewer. Another example is the Auto-RST project, an SME-Phase II project started in October 2019 within H2020 program, for the R&D of the manufacturing process of the innovative Glass-Foam-Glass type facets patented by Tewer. The main objective is to transition form the artisanal making of one-off individual facets to a pre-series production that allows to reproduce the design results in large numbers.
Recently, Tewer has been selected to carry out the solar field of the SI-CO project framed in the SolarEranet call, a project led by Acciona Industrial that will allow significant progress in reducing the costs of solar thermal plants by improving their energy storage capacity. Eight companies from three countries (Spain, Germany and Israel) participate in the SI-CO project, together with CIEMAT and DLR, which is the German aerospace institute.
TEWER leverages the expertise of its founders and engineers to develop cost effective heliostats, advanced dense heliostat field designs and control systems. The development capabilities of the team include system 3D design, mechanical thermal and CFD calculation using FEM systems, development of manufacturing processes and assembly Layouts.
CSP SIMULATION
TEWER has the most advanced software for modeling and calculation, both mechanical and optical, thermal and performance. It also has its own internally developed software to provide solar field efficiency and output calculations, plant production output, energy flow mapping on receiver and pointing strategies of the solar field.
Calculated with proprietary software based on Ray-Tracing, TEWER has validated this software at Plataforma Solar de Almería (Spain), at Plataforma Solar de Atacama 1 (Chile) and it has been already used in supporting Cobra Thermosolar Plants Inc. at solar field calculations of Crescent Dunes Project in Tonopah (NV).
CSP PRODUCTS
TEWER owns technological know-how on which has developed leading products for CSP.
FACETS
The solar reflector Tewer-RST3 is a sandwich facet designed to minimize the variation of its characteristics in working condition. The standard format of the product consists of a sandwich with a core of Solar Foam®, a polymeric foam specially developed to support the life of the reflector without varying characteristics. Innovative sandwich-type facet with Glass-Foam-Glass configuration, provides the system with thermal and mechanical stability without changing its optical properties with temperature variations. The Auto-RST H2020 project is developing the most suitable series production process for this type of reflector.
HELIOSTATS
This innovative heliostat design consists of a series of structural elements that constitute a substantial improvement over other solar trackers with similar characteristics: the anti-astigmatism ring, and the front tensioners. The anti-astigmatism ring is a system present in the back of the reflective surface that minimizes the deformation of the reflection due to bending of the torque tube when the inclination of the grid increases. When the inclination of the grid is reduced, the front tensioners prevent the apparent curvature of the reflective surface to be reduced or become convex, reducing overflow in the tower by these causes.
The first prototype of the heliostat HTW135 has been tested at the PSA (CIEMAT-Almería-SP) showing an optical quality value better than 1 mrad.
CCP COLLECTORS
The parabolic trough collector WD3 is a solar collector with RP3-type mirrors, based on a structure with torque tube and cantilever truss arms. Its innovative structural concept allows easy manufacture and local assembly, combined with excellent rigidity and optical performance. Their parabolic trough has been developed to meet the highest requirements of optical and thermal performance. Its peak optical and overall performance by modifying the angle of incidence (AMI) is a high guarantee for any of the applications in which it is used.
DISH CONCENTRATOR
TEWER is committed to the development of Dish-type collectors for Stirling engines of high efficiency, providing creative solutions to solving the structural challenges arising from the large reflective surface involved, the short radii of curvature, the high optical quality required in the facets, and all this without forgetting the cost constraint coming from the high competition in the sector.
The wide real experience of the team in CSP projects, both tower and parabolic trough, allows TEWER to offer leading technology services in this field. TEWER guarantees technical and economic evaluations of implementation of photovoltaic generation projects, covering all the needs required by the property: Evaluation and Feasibility Studies, Feasibility and Regulatory Compliance for the Connection & Location Features and Solar Resource Availability among others.
