“EPC” Industry
EPC stands for Engineering, Procurement and Construction is a prominent form of contracting agreement in the construction industry. The engineering and construction contractor will carry out the detailed engineering design of the project, procure all the equipment and materials necessary, and then construct to deliver a functioning facility or asset to their clients. Companies that deliver EPC Projects are commonly referred to as EPC Contractors.
The EPC phase of the project is also known as the Execution phase which normally follows what is known as a FEED or Front End Engineering Design phase. The FEED is a basic engineering design used as the basis for the EPC phase. The FEED can be divided into separate packages covering different portions of the project. The FEED packages are used as the basis for bidding on when the client offers the EPC work to the market.
Normally the EPC Contractor has to execute and deliver the project within an agreed time and budget, commonly known as a Lump Sum Turn Key (LSTK) Contract. An EPC LSTK Contract places the risk for schedule and budget on the EPC Contractor. |
Solar Power System
Solar power is the conversion of sunlight into electricity, either directly using Photovoltaics (PV), or indirectly using concentrated solar power (CSP). Concentrated solar power systems use lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam. Photovoltaics convert light into electric current using the photovoltaic effect. Photovoltaics were initially, and still are, used to power small and medium-sized applications, from the calculator powered by a single solar cell to off-grid homes powered by a photovoltaic array.
Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems use lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam. The concentrated heat is then used as a heat source for a conventional power plant. A wide range of concentrating technologies exists: the most developed are the parabolic trough [discuss], the concentrating linear fresnel reflector, the Stirling dish and the solar power tower. Various techniques are used to track the sun and focus light. In all of these systems a working fluid is heated by the concentrated sunlight, and is then used for power generation or energy storage. Thermal storage efficiently allows up to 24 hour electricity generation.
Photovoltaic power systems
Simplified schematics of a grid-connected residential PV power system Solar cell produce direct current (DC) power which fluctuates with the sunlight’s intensity. For practical use this usually requires conversion to certain desired voltages or alternating current (AC), through the use of inverters. Multiple solar cells are connected inside modules. Modules are wired together to form arrays, then tied to an inverter, which produces power at the desired voltage, and for AC, the desired frequency/phase.