Archive
CONCENTRATED SOLAR POWER. Latest published applications 2015-2017. Solar Tower
Summary
The design of solar power plants which concentrate sunlight through plane mirror heliostats and a central receiver is widely represented around the world – in America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. A significant advantage of this technology if compared to its main competitor, the CSP parabolic trough, is primarily the use of plane, less expensive, mirrors. Furthermore, substantially less energy is lost while the working fluid is transferred from the receivers to the steam turbines. There is considerable interest in the designs of rotating receivers and ceramic particles (CentRec), which contribute to higher energy conversion efficiency. Among the shortcomings of the design which should be mentioned are the vulnerability of stable operation of the station due to the central receiver, whose malfunctioning could lead to its complete stop, considerable requirements for the heliostat support structure and tracking devices, as well as the need for precise and coordinated control of the heliostat field. Most of the new technical solutions for this technology are reflected in the patent documents selected for this review.
The present bulletin reviews patent applications registered by patent offices around the globe in 2015-2017 in the field related to Solar Tower in Concentrated Solar Power. General research methodology can be found on the website Advanced Energy Technologies. 1110 patent documents from 33 patent offices around the world are represented in the bulletin. In total, 387 applicants from 28 countries and 662 subgroups of the International Patent Classification are mentioned.
Key Highlights
The bulletin contains statistical data on the distribution of patent documents by years, by patent offices and by applicant countries, applicant-related data (residents and non-residents), and data on the most frequently mentioned International Patent Classification divisions (sections, classes, subclasses, groups, and subgroups). The top three patent offices that registered the largest number of patent applications were CNIPA (CN), USPTO (US) and WIPO. Based on the analysis of each of the patent applications, internal characteristics of unified indicators (technical problems, types of inventive solutions, belonging to one or other technological segment) were found, which allowed specific features for each of the indicators for the entire array of documents to be defined, for instance, to define the leading problems or technical solution types that were disclosed by the inventors the most. Document lists are provided for the ten most popular groups of patent documents with identical unified indicators, including their ID numbers and applicant names.
A list of the top 10 applicants by the number of patent documents includes the University of Stellenbosch (ZA), Abengoa Solar New Technologies, S.A. (ES), Cockerill Maintenance & Ingenierie S.A. (BE), Babcock & Wilcox Company (US), Alstom Technology, Ltd. (CH), BASF, SE (DE), Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Ltd (JP), Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) (DE), Ibiden Co., Ltd. (JP) and SolarReserve, LLC (US). Data representing the share in the established intellectual property market, distribution of applications by problems, IPC sections, patent offices and technology indicators is provided in the form of tables and diagrams for them.
The bulletin contains lists of the top 10 prominent documents having the highest bibliographical rating, the most extensive coverage of IPC sections, and those not being part a of patent family. The conclusive part of the bulletin represents the lists of all of the documents reviewed, arranged by the top 10 groups of patent documents with identical unified indicators and by patent offices with the indication of the ID numbers of the registered patent applications.
Who needs this bulletin?
The data provided in the proposed bulletin is a timely reflection of the transformations that take place in the intellectual property sector of the industrial direction concerned. A thoroughly edited selection of patent documents can become a good complement to your library of available technical solutions. The bulletin is targeted at inventors, engineers, researchers, managers and business administrators involved in the development of solar energy production technologies.
