Renewable Energy World reports that Spain continues to lead the way in constructing solar thermal power plants - Torresol Energy Constructing CSP Stations.
Torresol Energy, 60% owned by SENER, has begun work on the construction of two new concentrating solar power (CSP) plants located in Cadiz, in the town of San José del Valle.

The plants, which will have an installed capacity of 50 MW each, will both use SENER trough collectors creating a solar field of 510,120 m2 on a surface area of 460 hectares.

Net electrical output for the so-called Valle 1 and Valle 2 installations is 175 GWh/year and each plant will be able to continue to produce electricity for seven hours without sunshine as a result of thermal storage capacity.

SENER will be the technology provider in the consortium it has formed with AMSA, including its trough collector system and the molten salt thermal storage system, as well as the design of the details and the commissioning of the CSP plants.

The parabolic trough collector installation will be ready for 2011.