On the roof

 

In the field

The Instituto de Sistemas Fotovoltaicos de Concentración (ISFOC) owns the greatest number of CPV installed plants the world, which produce the most total power in world. ISFOC CPV plants are all located in Castilla-La Mancha (Spain).

From September 2008, ISFOC has operated and analysed two CPV plants of 300kw and 800kw each, installed at Almoguera (Guadalajara, Spain) and Puertollano (Ciudad Real, Spain). In those plants, there are three different technologies in operation: Isofotón (a company located in Málaga, Spain); Concentrix Solar (a German company with a subsidiary in Seville, Spain) and Solfocus (USA). Their infrastructures were developed during ISFOC’s first stage of development. 

Additionally, works and documentation for another 1600kw CPV plant to be located in Puertollano are being completed as well. Its start-up is foreseen for 2012, with five different technologies involved: Concentrix Solar (Germany), ArimaEco (Taiwan), Sol3G (Catalonia, Spain), Emcore (USA) and Renovalia CPV (Castilla-La Mancha, Spain).

That is the last ISFOC installation, closing up its development and investment stage on CPV.

 

Utilities

ISFOC, whose aim is to increase the energy efficiency of its installations, has developed a self-consumption hybrid system that implies important reductions on the grid-demands of its building’s air-con system. This system uses a CPV installation of 22.5kWp, battery-lines of 110kWh, and the grid as support in order to manage those different energy fluxes through grid conductors of 45kW while greatly benefiting from the solar resource.

Therefore, in the case of an energy surplus due to high solar irradiation and low consumption, the grid-conductors charge the batteries. If the batteries are already charged and the consumption is low, the CPV installation production is cut back. On the other hand, if there is not enough energy due to little or no solar irradiation during a period of high consumption, it supplies the energy surplus through the batteries. If the batteries are running low or if there is high consumption while there is not enough solar irradiation, the grid-conductors are able to feed directly to the grid, always granting a supply of energy.

The system is completely monitored so as to be useful for the development of the CPV system on this kind of application. Likewise, thanks to its modular structure, it will allow for new components to be added in the future.