On Friday last week, Mona Neubaur, Minister for Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Action and Energy of the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia, visited us at the Solar Towers Jülich. On that day, we had the worst weather conditions for solar research - maybe there could not have been more rain. But mirrors also need to be cleaned, right? Well, we had to forgo the drone flight and the walk through the solar field. However, we had engaging discussions during the presentations and the tour of the Multifocus Tower. A day to be remembered! Researchers from DLR, from University of Dortmund presented to Minister Neubaur the progress of the project "5hine" (pronounced "Shine"), funded by the 5G NRW programme and led by the DLR Institute of Solar Research. 5hine addresses the use of 5G mobile communication in the operation and economic efficiency of solar thermal tower plants. In such a power plant, numerous mirrors concentrate sunlight onto a single point, generating high temperatures at the top of the tower. The heat can then be used, for example, for electricity generation. To maintain functionality throughout the day, the mirrors track the sun's movement. Large solar power plants can have up to one hundred thousand individual mirrors spread across several square kilometres. Traditionally, control signals for these mirrors are transmitted from the plant's control centre to each mirror individually via copper cables. In fact, the complete cabling accounts for 5-8 percent of the cost of a heliostat field. The project’s goal is to transition to wireless transmission. The 5hine project tackles this challenge by leveraging 5G mobile communication to handle the extensive data transfer needed for managing numerous heliostats. Beyond just mirror control signals, the communication network must also integrate supplementary information. A crucial step towards automating the plant involves processing data for maintenance and calibration. Within the 5hine project, autonomous drones capture this data and transmit it to the control centre. For more information about the project, please visit: https://lnkd.in/eXk3waWX Patrick Hilger, Pascal Jörke, Henning Hehemann, Lena Weigelin, Charlotte Schröder, Patricia Dr. Peill, Monika Gatzke, Henning Horn, Thomas Schürmann, Fabian Seidel #5G #solarpowerplant
"It's a pleasure to be part of the project and its scientific community. We are improving our knowledge about Data-Collection via our Drone and the use of 5G mobile communication", stated Cornelius Toussaint, CEO of CONDOR.
Geschäftsführer der LeiKon GmbH
1moWe are proud to be part of the team. 5G is a chance for new kind of field installations in power plants and industrial facilities.