What is "solarlite"

Solarlite CSP Technology GmbH, located in Mecklenburg-Pomerania, Germany, develops and builds decentralized solar-thermal parabolic trough power plants ( CSP – Concentrated Solar Power) and process heat plants. For the first time worldwide, Solarlite is using direct steam generation commercially in a power plant.Solar thermal facilities offer the most sustainable form of energy recovery in terms of the environment, resources and availability. The technology has the advantage that as direct solar radiation increases, so does the efficiency of the facilities. The facilities are also characterized by a high degree of flexibility. They can be combined with all other fossil and renewable energy sources and are thus base-load capable. Another plus is the option of producing electricity and process heat at the same time or independently of one another. In addition, the residual heat can be used for further industrial applications for example desalination and cooling.
The first commercial solar thermal parabolic trough power plant with Direct Steam Generation in the world is producing electricity since Fall 2011. The 5 MWe solar thermal power plant located in Kanchanaburi/Thailand is unique in three different ways.

• First parabolic trough commercial power plant based on direct steam generation.
• Solarlite Trough SL4600 a new generation of parabolic trough made of composite material combined with an efficient thin-glass mirror which reflects more than 95% of the sun radiation.
• The construction method allows island solutions and smaller solar thermal parabolic trough plants starting from 500 kWe.

Solarlite has tested the DSG concept successfully in three pilot projects in Thailand and Germany. The DSG concept is environment friendly and allows significant reductions of the total
investment costs and levelized electricity cost. With DSG a higher operating temperature will be achievable.
The Solarlite SL 4600 parabolic trough is a newly developed highly efficient product that can generate temperatures of up to 400 °C. Each panel has an aperture width of 4,6 m and is
made of composite materials combined with an efficient thinglass mirror. This mirror reflects up to 95% of the sun's radiation onto the absorber pipe positioned at the ideal focus of the parabolic mirror.