Synhelion completes construction phase of first industrial solar fuel plant
Carbon-neutral fuel developer Synhelion has completed the construction of DAWN, the world’s first industrial solar fuel plant, with installation of the ‘mirror field’ marking the completion of the construction phase.…
June 12, 2024
Carbon-neutral fuel developer Synhelion has completed the construction of DAWN, the world’s first industrial solar fuel plant, with installation of the ‘mirror field’ marking the completion of the construction phase.
Work on the industrial-scale demonstration plant (located in Jülich, Germany) started in 2022, with Synhelion beginning commissioning of the facility in late 2023. With installation of the heliostat field finalised, “now we will inaugurate plant DAWN and continue with the ongoing commissioning of the plant to start fuel production,” said Philipp Good, CTO of Synhelion.
The plant employs’s Synhelion’s ‘sun-to-liquid’ technology “for the first time on industrial scale,” generating concentrated thermal energy with specially developed heliostats (mirrors) directed onto a solar receiver. “The ultra-thin mirrors are bent into the optimal shape, which allows us to achieve outstanding accuracy and helps to maximise the energy yield throughout the lifetime of the plant,” explains Synhelion.
Following DAWN’s inauguration later this month, future solar plants (such as Synhelion’s project in Spain) will be bigger and offer significantly higher production capacity.
Announcing its strategic partnership with Pilatus earlier this month, Synhelion indicated that after commissioning the plant, the first “small quantities of fuel” would be used for “demonstration purposes”.
