Siemens has received an order for four steam turbines for use at solar thermal power plants in the Indian state of Rajasthan. The projects will use parabolic trough solar thermal technology to convert sunlight into heat to produce high pressure steam. A total of four power plants is being developed, as part of India's Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM), which calls for the development of 20 GW of solar capacity in Indian by 2022.

The power plants are the Godawari (Godawari Green Energy), Abhijeet (Corporate Ispat Alloys), each with 50 MW of capacity, and the Diwakar & KVK project (two units, each with 100 MW; Lanco Solar Energy). Siemens will be supplying its SST-700 steam turbine generators, and the accompanying auxilliary systems. Siemens has already installed this technology at similar projects in the US and Spain. The SST-700 can be installed at power plants with up to 175 MW of capacity, and has the capability to power up or down very quickly, depending on demand and the intermittency of availability of the energy source, in this case the Sun.

[source: Siemens]