Carbon Management team of Aramco R&DC has successfully demonstrated the use of Solar
Thermal technology in Qurayyah Sea Water Plant operation facility. The system is intended to
help reduce the overall dependence on diesel for thermal energy requirement. It works simply by
absorbing the incoming solar radiation and directly heating up water that is circulating in copper
tubes inside the panels. The system uses a novel high efficiency aluminum absorber sheet (blue
layer) to harness solar energy, and the vacuum maintained between the glass cover and the absorber
sheet helps reducing the convection energy loses of the incoming radiation.
In the specific application at Qurayyah Sea Water Plant, the hot water produced from the solar
field is used to pre-heat feedwater to the steam boilers in the plant. This will result in over 10%
savings of the total annual diesel consumption that is burned to meet the required thermal energy.
This will also subsequently lead to the avoidance of over 350 tons of CO2 emissions annually
which is a key motivation behind this decarbonization initiative.
This achievement represents a really promising prospect for integrating renewable and sustainable
energy solutions into the energy mix of Saudi Aramco and contributing to the economic
development by availing commodity fuel for export instead of local consumption. The benefits
also include encouraging the local investment on clean energy technologies and the development
of local expertise in this field.