CSP World

Spain's Albiasa Solar, a company providing parabolic trough technology for Concentrated Solar Power plants, has closed its PV section according to fillings with Spanish regulator. The company will go on exclusively with the CSP section under the brand 'Albiasa Collector Trough' to focus on markets abroad Spain.

Albiasa Solar had developed its proprietary parabolic trough design, called ALBIASA-TROUGH, to be deployed in several CSP plants in Spain. The company carried out performance tests at the Plataforma Solar de Almería, the major European research center for CSP and was ready to be commercially manufactured on 2008, when the CSP boom started in Spain.

The company had applied for permits approval for a 50 MW CSP plant to be located in Saucedilla, in southwestern Spain, but the plant was not included in the first round of approved plants. Therefore, the company had to wait for a second round expected by 2013 that has never come.

In January 2012, Spain's government announced a halt in new renewable energy plants. Although it was announced as a temporary measure, the fact is that it has become definitive. Furthermore, as reported by CSP World, the new measures undertaken by Spanish government are hitting the profitability of CSP plants, what makes it harder to finance these kind of projects.

The company tried to enter in the US market with its wholly owned subsidiary Albiasa Corp. based in San Francisco. The company announced in 2009 it was promoting a 200 MW CSP plant worth $1 billion in Kingman, Arizona and it was reported on April 2010 that Pacific Light and Power asked the company to supply its CSP technology for a 10 MW plant in Hawaii (PLP Kaual 1 project). But none of these projects have succeeded.

Albiasa is currently commisioning the parabolic trough solar field for a 50 MW CSP plant in India developed by Megha Engineering and Infrastructures.

The company was more recently awarded to supply parabolic trough collector to a CSP plant in India promoted by Megha Engineering in the Andhra Pradesh region.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated from previous headline: First CSP company in Spain to go into liquidation after regulatory changes.