IDEC Energy offer utility companies different solutions from design to operation

Wind Energy Farms

Wind Turbines

Wind energy is competitively priced when compared to other new generation available.
Whether offshore or land-based, the cost of electricity from a wind farm is free not only from cost increases that may result from climate change and carbon emission regulations, but also from increases in the price of fuel used for electricity generation. For example, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, coal prices have risen by 150% from 1999 to 2006, and natural gas prices have risen 400%. By contrast, wind is free even if wind turbines aren’t. Costs for materials for all new generation have increased due to global demand, but once awind farm is built, the operating and maintenance costs are predictable. Utilities can lock in power prices for wind at a stable cost for twenty years or more.

Power Storage

Fuel Cells

The demand for electricity is constantly increasing. Many renewable resources, wind and solar power, for example are intermittent; they are not available all of the time. Storing energy from the renewable source allows supply to more closely match demand. For example, a fuel cells system attached to a wind turbine could store energy captured around the clock whenever the wind blows and then dispatch that energy into the higher-priced market. And fuel cells energy storage enables solar electricity to be used both day and night.

Solar Power

Concentrating Solar Power

Many power plants today use fossil fuels as a heat source to boil water. The steam from the boiling water spins a large turbine, which drives a generator to produce electricity. However, a new generation of power plants with concentrating solar power systems uses the sun as a heat source. The three main types of concentrating solar power systems are: linear concentrator, dish/engine.

Linear concentrator systems collect the sun's energy using long rectangular, curved (U-shaped) mirrors. The mirrors are tilted toward the sun, focusing sunlight on tubes (or receivers) that run the length of the mirrors. The reflected sunlight heats a fluid flowing through the tubes. The hot fluid then is used to boil water in a conventional steam-turbine generator to produce electricity. There are two major types of linear concentrator systems: parabolic trough systems, where receiver tubes are positioned along the focal line of each parabolic mirror; and linear Fresnel reflector systems, where one receiver tube is positioned above several mirrors to allow the mirrors greater mobility in tracking the sun.

A dish/engine system uses a mirrored dish similar to a very large satellite dish. The dish-shaped surface directs and concentrates sunlight onto a thermal receiver, which absorbs and collects the heat and transfers it to the engine generator. This system uses the fluid heated by the receiver to move pistons and create mechanical power. The mechanical power is then used to run a generator or alternator to produce electricity.

Concentrator Photovoltaic Arrays (CPV)

Using optical lenses and mirrors we concentrate the sunlight onto a very small, highly efficient Multi-Junction solar cell. For example, under 500-sun concentration, 1 cm2 of solar cell area produces the same electricity as 500 cm2 would, without concentration. This is particularly significant when considering the inherent efficiency advantage of the Multi-Junction technology over Silicon solar cells the use of concentration, therefore, allows substitution of cost-effective materials such as lenses and mirrors for the more costly semiconductor PV cell material.