Dry cooling in Offaly

SOLAR POWER:AN OFFALY-based mechanical engineering company has won a €4 million EU grant to develop a groundbreaking technology to cool solar power plants.

Concentrated solar power (CSP) plants involve focusing the sun’s energy onto a central point where it heats a small amount of water, which turns to steam and then turns a turbine. However, cooling the steam and turning it back to water is not currently as efficient a process as it could be.

But through its experience of working with air cooling fans and condensers, Tullamore-based RR Mechanical aims to solve this problem using innovative dry cooling technology that has several advantages.

The first of these comes from using finely-tuned electronic timing to control the cooling fans, making them more efficient in terms of how much power they require and also how much water the overall system requires.

The company has also changed the layout of the devices, making them easier to ship to their destination and easier and cheaper to put together at the plant site.

These benefits led to the technology being seen by the EU as first in its category and more superior to 60 other project proposals in terms of its efficiency, scientific value and its potential economic impact.

This was also a recognition that commercialising the MACCSol technology could help achieve the EU target of 5 per cent of all European energy – one quarter of its 20 per cent renewable energy target – to be produced from solar power sources by 2020.

Working with up to six senior researchers, Dr Ronan Grimes at the University of Limerick’s Stokes Institute will co-ordinate the building, designing, testing and optimising of various MACCSol prototypes, with a view to trialling a final one within the next three and a half years.

Founded by Nigel Reams in 2003, RR Mechanical is also working on gas turbine power stations for the ESB and for Tynagh Energy.

It will also be involved in the construction of a so-called peaking plant in Offaly, which will provide efficient backup to the electricity grid when the wind isn’t blowing.