SunBorne Energy’s R&D project is jointly funded by India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and the Government of India, and involves internationally renowned solar experts such as Dr Yogi Goswami, Dr Manuel Romero and Dr Aldo Stienfeld.
The University of South Florida in the US, the IMDEA Energy Foundation in Spain, and the Indian Institute of Technology among others are also collaborating on this project which aims to “address the current technology limitations present in Indian industry” with an international team that has extensive experience in power tower systems and energy storage.
The cutting-edge project will include a field of heliostats designed by Spain’s Titan Tracker. SunBorne team is adopting Titan Tracker’s heliostat design through unique field layout and indigenized mirror facet manufacturing technology. Titan Tracker heliostat design is characterised by its minimal deformations, zero backlash and continuous movement in azimuth proving extremely high accuracy and reliability.
“We have selected Titan Tracker because of its performance according to our requirements but also combined with a relevant potential for cost reduction. This will allow us to achieve our targets for next commercial CSP projects in India,” explains principal investigator of the R&D project, Dr. Nitin Goel.
In turn, Juan P. Cabanillas, Managing Director of Titan Tracker, explains “We are really pleased to work with SunBorne as a business partner in India for a long-term cooperation. We are proud to have reached about 30% cost reduction in the manufacturing of our tracking systems and heliostats after the latest developments”.
The current status of this project will be presented during the SolarPACES conference in September in Granada (Spain).
SunBorne Energy aims to reach grid parity and create affordable electricity for India by 2015 through a combination of approaches. These include utility-scale solar power generation, which it describes as “the most cost effective form of solar power available today”, involving the roll out of power tower plants subsequent to this pilot project.
“Solar power can be a valuable asset in a utility’s portfolio and can be easily adopted at a commercial scale. Parabolic CSP technology is the only proven technology at the utility scale and we plan to build our first plant using this technology. This will accelerate our learning curve on technology, financing and project development and help us enlarge our existing IP;” explains the company. SunBorne Energy is also commited to the “Indigenization of the supply chain”. India has a strong pool of engineering talent and an evolving manufacturing infrastructure, and the company plans to develop an ecosystem of local suppliers for various components of solar power plants. “This will help us reduce capital costs and also develop more cost effective designs, while creating high tech jobs in our country. CSP relies on steam turbine based power generation and much of the equipment can be sourced locally in India. Over time our vision is to help indigenize nearly 100% of the components we use,” reveals the company.
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