The technology being studied, at a coal-based power plant, would allow a larger net output of electricity, but without consuming more fuel to gain the additional electricity.

Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association has recently entered into an agreement with the Electric Power Research Institute to host a case study in an effort to help electric utilities add solar energy to fossil-fueled generating stations.

Tri-State’s 245-megawatt Escalante Station – a coal-based power plant located in Prewitt, N.M. – has been identified as the host facility for the study.  The process to be studied involves introducing steam generated by a solar thermal field to the conventional power plant’s steam cycle to offset some of the fuel required to generate electricity.

The project – one of two similar efforts that EPRI is currently spearheading – will provide a conceptual design study, analyse options to retrofit the existing power plant and identify new plant design options. 

EPRI will rely on its expertise in solar technologies, steam cycles and plant operation, as well as past solar and fossil plant studies.

The system’s performance will be analysed by solar thermal research engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, N.M., and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colo.

Relevant link: For previous report on EPRI