People & Themes
In order to better examine and investigate the various aspects of the project, the latter was divided into the following themes. (In bold the Theme leaders of each group are noted.)
Techno-economic & Siting Group at CyIProf. C. N. Papanicolas |
Electricity Production Group at EACDr. Andreas Poullikkas Desalination Group at UIUCProf. John Georgiadis |
Light Harvesting & Heat Storage Group at MITProf. Alex Slocum |
Optimization and Integration Group at MITProf. Alexander Mitsos |
- Prof. C.N. Papanicolas, President of the Cyprus Institute lead the Policy & Techno Economic Assessment theme of the project. This theme examined policy and economic issues related with the appraisal of existing CSP and Desalination technologies, and of the planned pilot plant.
- Prof. Alexander H. Slocum, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT lead the Light Harvesting and Heat Storage themes of the Project. The Light Harvesting theme examined and reviewed the different methods currently being employed of harvesting solar power using mirrors in different configurations. The Heat Storage theme represents one of the most innovative and technologically demanding parts of the CSP-DSW study. An ultimate design objective is to enable the proposed pilot plant to operate on a 24-hour, 7 days a week base load. An intermediate goal will be to adequate storage time so as to match the daily demand curve to the production of the plant. The CSP-DSW study examined heat storage media at different storage temperatures.
- Dr. Andreas Poullikkas, Assistant Manager of the Research and Development department of the Electricity Authority of Cyprus, lead the Electricity Production theme. This theme will examine and propose solutions for an optimized (most efficient) way to produce electricity through steam generators taking into account the very demanding and rather unique thermodynamic cycle of the co-generation scheme.
- Prof. Alexandros Mitsos, is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He lead the Optimization and Integration theme which will pursue detailed investigation for the optimization of overall efficiency of the CSP-DSW plant. It provided a method for comparing and selecting the most promising alternatives for the proposed pilot plant, taking various factors such as scale (i.e. desired power output and mass-flow of water), weather conditions and economic parameters into consideration.
- Prof. John Georgiadis is Richard W. Kritzer Distinguished Professor at the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. He lead the Desalination theme of the CSP-DSW project which attempted to identify the most efficient way through modern desalination techniques of implementing them through the co-generation scheme. Reverse Osmosis (RO) and Multiple Effect Distillation (MED) were both investigated to select the most suitable for utilisation.
- Dr. Tasos Anastasiou, is a Research Associate at the Cyprus Institute. He lead the Siting theme charged with the identification of suitable locations on the island which would be optimal for hosting the proposed pilot plant.