The 350MW solar project at Delingha solar park in Qinghai by CGN will combine 3 Towers with Trough CSP
[Ed: Till now, Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) using parabolic Trough technology has been limited in efficiency by the temperature limit of the heat transfer oil to around 400°C. Tower CSP with molten salts can achieve 565°C without degradation, for greater efficiency. But raising the temperature of heat transfer fluid for Trough could be a game changer, because Trough projects are not physically size-limited to 100MW like Tower, where reflected sunlight must travel from even the outermost ring of heliostats to the solar receiver on the tower.]
Source: China Solar Thermal Alliance:
The project features a total heliostat field aperture area of 3.7 million square meters, equivalent to the size of 518 standard football pitches, comprising three tower-type mirror fields of 1.1 million square meters each and one parabolic trough mirror field of 400,000 square meters. The trough field exclusively utilizes CGN’s self-developed 8.6-meter large-aperture trough collectors.
The project adopts trough-type solar thermal collection technology, which completed technical validation on April 21 this year at the Delingha Solar Thermal Test Base.
The system achieves a concentration ratio of 107.5x, enabling stable operation from a 290°C inlet to a 550°C outlet, with a thermal storage temperature difference of 260°C—2.6 times that of traditional heat transfer oil systems.
The core components of the entire equipment set have achieved 100% independent control of key technologies.
The project is equipped with a 15-hour large-capacity molten salt thermal storage system with a storage capacity of 11,747 MWh, making it the CSP project with the largest single-unit thermal storage capacity globally. It enables stable power generation with excellent grid peak-shaving flexibility, effectively improving new energy accommodation efficiency and power supply reliability across the Qinghai grid. Upon completion, it is expected to generate 1 billion kWh of electricity annually, equivalent to saving 320,000 tons of standard coal and reducing CO₂ emissions by 860,000 tons, delivering significant ecological and environmental benefits.
