Enel Green Power is conducting research into hybrid renewable energy systems (HRES) as a way to push the renewable energy sector forward, improving its own plant performance at the same time. At present its focus is on increasing the compatibility of geothermal power with solar power and biomass.
At the plant, which is the first one of its type in the whole world and was designed jointly with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the solar power plant heats up a fluid, a mix of water and ethylene glycol, which is heated up to about 200 degrees centigrade and used to raise the temperature of the geothermal fluid, increasing the efficiency of both the entire thermodynamic energy cycle and production.
‘In terms of solar integration, the plant adds about 17 thermal megawatts, equivalent to five megawatts of additional capacity. That means that the yearly production will increase by around 14 gigawatt-hours,’ said Fabrizio Bizzarri, Enel’s head of Innovation Scouting and Selection.
The project will cost $13 million and will be financed by the bodies that typically finance this sort of technology. As Bizzarri added: ‘the US Department of Energy has shown an interest in this sort of project.’
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