Location: ZA - South Africa
The activity represents the construction of the receiver tower for a concentrated solar tower plant in Upington, South Africa. The sunlight transferred from the heliostats strikes the top of the tower. It is here that temperatures rises up close to 1000°C. The present modelling of the receiver system includes pumps, which promote the cold salt melt to the receiver. The receiver component itself consists largely of a nickel-chromium alloy in order to be able to withstand the high temperatures during operation.
This dataset is entirely based on the detailed life cycle inventory as presented in the dissertation report by
Telsnig, Thomas. 2015. Standortabhängige Analyse und Bewertung solarthermischer Kraftwerke am Beispiel Südafrikas. Forschungsbericht. Band 123. ISSN 0938-1228. Institut für Energiewirtschaft und Rationelle Energieanwendung, Universität Stuttgart, Germany.
Undefined unit processes (UPRs) are the unlinked, multi-product activity datasets that form the basis for all of the system models available in the ecoinvent database. This is the way the datasets are obtained and entered into the database by the data providers. These activity datasets are useful for investigating the environmental impacts of a specific activity (gate-to-gate), without regard to its upstream or downstream impacts.