The recent Third Concentrated Solar Thermal Power Summit in Seville (Spain) was the scene for the launch of Siemen’s new solar receiver, the UVAC 2010 (Universal Vacuum Air Collector), which the company claims “further increases thermal heat production”

The new UVAC 2010 is the next generation of the best-selling UVAC receiver, which is a key component in the solar fields of many parabolic-trough power plants. More than 150,000 UVACs have been successfully installed in commercially operating power plants.

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According to the company: “The UVAC 2010 features extremely high solar absorption, reduced heat loss and an enlarged active area, offering solar field developers significantly increased revenues and reduced operating costs”.

Emissivity (heat loss) is improved as a result of technological advances in the sputtered selective coatings, as well as an improved active area to length ratio, which enables greater solar exposure of the receiver and a proportionate increase in absorbed energy. “Its superior heat loss levels — below 9% — provide developers with greater efficiency,” declares Siemens.

Products and solutions for solar thermal power plants are part of Siemens’ Environmental Portfolio. In fiscal 2009, revenue from the Portfolio totalled about €23 billion, while its products and solutions enabled customers to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 210 million metric tonnes.

Just recently, Siemens acquired Solel Solar Systems Ltd., a successful company in the future-oriented solar power sector, as an addition to its existing solar portfolio and to strengthen its market position in the promising business of solar thermal power plants, which is forecast to show annual double-digit growth rates until 2020, especially in the US, South Africa, Australia, Spain, India, North Africa and the Middle East.