Swiss and German private equity funds Terra Nex and Middle East Best Select announced plans to build 400 megawatts (MW) of solar power generating capacity in the southeastern Arabian peninsula country of Oman, according to recent news announcements. The $2-billion project calls for construction of solar power installations, as well as facilities to manufacture solar photovoltaic (PV) panels for use in Oman and for export.
Earlier this year I wrote about Glasspoint Energy and its innovative method of using solar power to heat water to make steam, which gets injected into old oil fields to coax out stubborn heavy oil. Glasspoint installs its cheap, flimsy aluminum foil-like solar collectors inside simple glass houses (think agricultural greenhouses), which shelter the gear from the elements. Materials costs are a fraction of those for more traditional solar collectors. Glasspoint’s first commercial project was for Berry Petroleum in the century-old oil fields near Bakersfield, Calif.
GlassPoint Solar (Fremont, California, U.S.) announced that it has won a contract from Petroleum Development Oman (PDO, Muscat, Oman) to build an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) system powered by a 7 MW solar thermal plant.
The solar thermal system will use GlassPoint’s single transit trough (STT) technology, and the company says the system will produce 11 tons of steam at temperatures of 312 degrees Celsius and pressures of 1,450 PSI.
“After extensively researching solar EOR solutions, we’ve identified GlassPoint as the most promising technology for this pilot” said PDO Corporate Technology Advisor Dr. Syham Bentouati.
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