Worm drive for more accurate heliostat calibration

• Global generation of solar powered energy is actively expanding. According BloombergNEF, it is likely to increase from the current 2 percent of the global electricity production up to 22 percent by the middle of the century.

The research organization predicts wind and solar power will become more feasible than fossil fuel in about ten years. In a thirty years’ period, renewable power is expected to constitute half of the global electricity production. 

There are a few factors that allow the sector to expand. They include corporate demand for green energy, governmental incentives, as well as the latest innovative technologies making clean energy production more cost-effective. 

Currently, the large-scale photovoltaic projects are being created at 90-95 c/W, and the cost is forecasted to drop below 85 c/W in the nearest future. 

The concentrated solar power technology is also developing intensely. The key point of innovation in the field is the efficiency of gear drives meant for more reliable concentration of large amounts of sunlight on a collector tower. 

Since standard CSP plants are huge, even a minimum heliostat accuracy improvement can be a significant benefit. The double-enveloping worm gearing developed by Cone Drive makes it possible to track movement of the sun accurately. The innovative solution makes the system more balanced in terms of cost and efficiency. 

The worm gear technology has been implemented at one of the biggest CSP plants in the world – Ivanpah Solar power facility, located in the state of California. The project was commissioned six years ago. The following year, it was awarded with POWER’s Plant of the Year prize. The system has a capacity of 377 megawatts and consists of almost 174 thousand heliostats, which are accurately calibrated for optimized energy harvesting.