Outcomes and features of the inspection of receiver tubes (ITR) system for improved O&M in parabolic trough plants

Concentrated solar power (CSP) plants based on parabolic trough (PT), after several years since their commissioning, demand new operation and maintenance (O&M) developments. Particularly, the receiver tube’s potential degradation over time is a real challenge. In this paper, the current version of the ITR System’s last developments and advanced features are presented together with the main outcomes provided by the system for a real, complete solar field inspection in a commercial PT power plant. Exemplarily, this commercial ITR inspection showed that 0.8% of the tubes were underperforming and thus classified as outliers, while the average relative power of the tubes from the solar field resulted in about 97% of the ideal tubes’ power. This paper shows that, thanks to the ITR Inspection System, plant operators can more easily develop and adopt improved O&M strategies, such as corrective and preventive actions in the solar field and even predictive actions in case of periodic inspections.