Within its combustion equipment maintenance work area, Soluciones Integrales de Combustión is carrying out the maintenance of the combustion equipment of the Ashalim solar thermal plant, in Israel, in order to guarantee its optimum operation from the point of view of reliability, energy efficiency and safety.

Considered one of the largest projects of its kind in the world, the Ashalim solar thermal power plant became the first concentrated solar power plant with Concentrate Solar Power (CSP) technology developed in Israel. An investment of 1,000 million dollars was disbursed in the project. The facility features more than 5,000 computer-controlled heliostats and mirrors that track the sun on two axes and reflect sunlight into a caldera at the top of a 250-meter tower.

Soluciones Integrales de Combustión was in charge of carrying out in 2019 the assembly and start-up work of the combustion equipment of the facility, which has an electrical energy production capacity of 125 MW, the equivalent to supply 120,000 homes, and approximately 2% of the country’s consumption. This renewable energy generation facilitated the country’s goal of reaching 10% of energy produced by clean energy in the year 2020.

Combustion equipment maintenance

The Ashalim solar thermal plant has 5 large boilers and 25 thermal MW manufactured by the Valencian company Sugimat; as well as three industrial burners model JBD-60.000-G from E&M Combustion, which work with natural gas, and another two JBD-60.000-GLO mixed burners from the same company that will operate with diesel and natural gas. The five combustion units work with air preheated to 250ºC and with a gas recirculation system (F.G.R.) to control NOx emissions into the atmosphere.

Thus, the use of preheated air in the burners makes it possible to significantly improve the performance of the plant. In turn, to avoid the increase in emissions derived from the increase in flame temperature, the technical solution undertaken makes it possible to counteract these emissions with the implementation of the combustion gas recirculation system (F.G.R.), which optimizes combustion, by decreasing the flame temperature, causing the thermal NOx to be reduced to the same extent.

Commissioning of installations

The commissioning of energy facilities, together with maintenance, is one of the traditional services of the company Soluciones Integrales de Combustión, for which it has its own technical service area for start up and commissioning. The company undertakes projects practically all over the world. In this service area, it also carries out revamping of facilities, repair and maintenance and inspection of the facilities.