Client:
Liciastar / Sener
Date:
April – September 2017
Facilities:
Cape Town Workshops
Project Description / Scope of Work
The Kathu Solar Park (Plant 1) – with 100 MW generation capacity – is a solar thermoelectric generation Power Plant. It uses, as its primary energy source, solar energy collected by a Parabolic Trough Collector Assembly Field – this via curved mirror parabolic reflectors, a tracking system, a support structure and a receiver tube. The system also includes heat exchangers, steam boilers and steam turbines.
The plant is equipped with a molten salt storage system that allows for 4.5 hours of thermal energy storage. The storage system reduces the effects of irregular sunlight and enables the plant to produce electricity during low irradiation conditions and after sunset.
The mechanical pre-fabrication for the solar field area (Header and Loops piping, plus structural steel supports); including – the receipt of material, material handling, bevelling, fitting, bending, drilling, welding, surface treatment, quality control and transport to Kathu Solar Park – Kathu, Kalahari Desert, Northern Cape. The project fabrication statistics (workshops only) are noteworthy:
- 135 containers of free-issued piping / fittings / swivel joints received.
- This is more than 2,600,000 kg of material received and safely off-loaded / handled.
- 80,000 diameter inches of welding were completed (more than 4,000 piping spools in total).
- 3,500 structural steel supports were manufactured for the fields (more than 164T).
- All of the above were treated with the appropriate corrosion protection specification, and suitably marked and labelled.
- 144 trucks were required to deliver the fabricated items to Kathu (each with a completed quality data dossier).
