Alpha Mojave Solar Power Plant

New Construction Services

VALUE DELIVERED

University Mechanical & Engineering of California (UMEC) was able to fast track the project despite the size of the project field—approximately 1.5 square miles—to allow the client maximum operating time and maximum capacity.

CLIENT OBJECTIVES

Mojave Solar needed to warm heat transfer fluids (HTF) as part of their electricity-generating solar fields.

PROJECT SOLUTIONS

A nominal 250-MW solar electricity-generating facility in the Mojave Desert was in need of a parabolic trough technology to solar heat Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF). The hot HTF will generate steam in solar steam generators, which will expand through a steam turbine generator to produce electrical power from twin independently operable solar fields, each feeding a 125-MW power island.

UMEC installed approximately 84,000 feet of 3" - 20" carbon steel field header piping and1.2 miles of header piping, with 17 miles of overall piping.

CLIENT BACKGROUND

Mojave Solar, LLC is a private research venture of the Eddy Company, makers of Optical Coating Equipment, and runs one of the few private solar helioseismology facilities in the world: Abengoa's Mojave Solar Plant. Mojave Solar is located in Southern California's Mojave Desert where their solar telescope collects magnetic, Doppler, and high-quality helioseismology data for dissemination to various researchers.