During the first Moroccan Summer School for Renewable Energy scientists from the DLR Institute of Solar Research passed their knowledge of concentrating solar thermal on to Moroccan junior engineers.
Two scientists from the DLR Institute of Solar Research, Prahl Christoph and Christoph Hilgert gave a series of lectures on concentrated solar power. A well balanced mixture of theoretical lectures as well as practical exercises and experiments invited the students to active participation.
An introductory session explained the theoretical basis and gave an overview on various CSP technologies. It was followed by practical exercises on how the core technologies, tower and parabolic trough actually work including a detailed description of optical and thermal loss processes in CSP systems and their optimization. In groups the participants worked on topics such as heat transfer and storage and the grid integration of CSP plants.
In the course of the practical part which took place in the garden of the University different functional models were deployed, on which the students applied their theoretical knowledge to practice.Two miniature parabolic trough and two miniature solar towers including heliostats, powered by the Moroccan July sun, allowed the aspiring engineers to perform thermal measurements under (almost) real conditions.