The solar furnace of Odeillo is a Solar furnace thus functioning with the solar energy. Its thermal power is of 1 MW. With that of Tachkent (Ouzbékistan), it is one of the two larger solar furnaces of the world.
This laboratory owes its world famous with its single scientific asset in the world in the field of the studies per solar way of the phenomena at high temperatures and the behavior of materials subjected to extreme conditions.
Geography
World symbol of solar energy in France, the large solar furnace of Odeillo is located in the commune of Make-Romeu-Odeillo-Via in Cerdagne, in the department of the the Eastern Pyrenees (area of the Languedoc-Roussillon), in the South of the France. The site was selected for:
- duration and the quality of its sunning in direct light (more than 3000 h/an)
- purity of its atmosphere.
Principles of operation
It is the principle of the concentration of the rays by reflective mirrors: a first series of mirrors directional and located on the slope, collect the solar rays and send them towards a second series of “concentrating” mirrors forming enormous the Parabole. The rays converge then towards the top of the central tower, on a target, a circular surface 40 cm in diameter only. That amounts concentrating the energy of “10.000 suns”.
Advantages
- One obtains rapidement of the higher temperatures with 3000 °C.
- energy is “free”, and nonpolluting.
- This furnace makes it possible to obtain abrupt changes of temperature, and thus to study the effect of the thermal shocks.
- It has almost no contaminating element there (combustion gas,…), since only the object studied is heated and this, only by one radiation.
Use
The solar furnace of Odeillo is a research laboratory of CNRS (UMR) Co-ability with the Université of Perpignan on the thermal studies at high temperature, the systems Caloporteur S, energy the transformation, the behavior of materials at high temperature in extreme environments…
The fields of research are also extended to the aircraft industries, aerospace…
One can make there experiments under conditions of great chemical purity.
History
The Physicist French Felix Waterspout and its team realized with Meudon in 1946 a first experiment using a Miroir of DCA to show the possibility of reaching high temperatures very quickly and in a very pure environment, thanks to the strongly concentrated light of the sun. The objective was to dissolve ore and to extract some from very pure materials to make new more powerful refractory materials.
To concretize this die and to test the various possibilities of them, a first solar furnace was built with Mount-Louis in 1949. A few years after, on the model of the furnace of Mount-Louis and within sight of the results obtained, a solar furnace of quasi industrial size was built in Odeillo. The building work of the Large Solar furnace of Odeillo lasted of 1962 with 1968 for a startup in 1970.
Fervent supporters of the solar energy and following the first Oil crisis of 1973, during second half of the years 1970, the researchers of the solar furnace of Odeillo more directed their work towards the conversion of solar energy into electricity.
This work took part in the study of a thermal solar power station which will be carried out by EDF with beginning of the year 80. It is the THEMIS power station whose experimentation lasted of 1982 with 1986.
The closing of THEMIS meant the deactivation of research on the conversion of the solar energy into electricity. The laboratory of the Large Solar furnace of Odeillo centres its activity on the study of materials and the development of industrial processes. The laboratory is called then IMP (Institute of Materials and Processes).
With the return of the energy and environmental concerns, the laboratory is implied again in the research solution concerning energy and the environment without disavowing its single competences in the field of materials and the processes. PROMES (Proceeded Materials and Solar energy), it is the current name of the laboratory, works today, in addition to research on materials, on various systems of production of electricity, several methods of extraction of hydrogen by solar way, on various processes of reprocessings of waste (including radioactive).
Information center for public “HELIODYSSEE”
Since 1990 CNRS proposes an information center open to the public. Initially entitled “Exposure of the Large Solar furnace of Odeillo”, this site becomes at the end of 2006 “HELIODYSSEE”.
Intended for small as for the large HELIODYSSEE allows to discover by having fun the solar energy and its derivative (other forms of renewable energies, uses in the habitat) and work of the researchers of CNRS on energy, the environment, the materials for space, the materials of the future.
HELIODYSSE comprises also an educational service more particularly intended for the classes of the primary education and the colleges. The workshops proposed make it possible to the pupils to approach in a simple way and concretes the first concepts on renewable energy, the characteristics of the light, the greenhouse effect, etc
See too
Internal bonds
External bonds
- Laboratory of the Large Solar furnace of odeillo
- the Solar furnace on the site History of Roussillon
- the Solar furnace on the site of the Tourist bureau
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