10-10-2012, 12:22 PM
Solar Thermal Energy
solar-thermal.pdf (Size: 2.81 MB / Downloads: 88)
Solar Thermal vs. Photovoltaic
It is important to understand that solar thermal
technology is not the same as solar panel, or
photovoltaic, technology. Solar thermal electric
energy generation concentrates the light from the
sun to create heat, and that heat is used to run a
heat engine, which turns a generator to make
electricity. The working fluid that is heated by the
concentrated sunlight can be a liquid or a gas.
Different working fluids include water, oil, salts, air,
nitrogen, helium, etc. Different engine types include
steam engines, gas turbines, Stirling engines, etc.
All of these engines can be quite efficient, often
between 30% and 40%, and are capable of
producing 10’s to 100’s of megawatts of power.
Photovoltaic, or PV energy conversion, on the other
hand, directly converts the sun’s light into electricity.
This means that solar panels are only effective
during daylight hours because storing electricity is
not a particularly efficient process. Heat storage is a
far easier and efficient method, which is what
makes solar thermal so attractive for large-scale
energy production. Heat can be stored during the
day and then converted into electricity at night.
Solar thermal plants that have storage capacities
can drastically improve both the economics and the
dispatchability of solar electricity.
Competing with Fossil Fuels
Solar thermal power currently leads the way as the
most cost-effective solar technology on a large
scale. It currently beats other PV systems, and it
also can beat the cost of electricity from fossil fuels
such as natural gas. In terms of low-cost and high
negative environmental impact, nothing competes
with coal.
But major solar thermal industry players such as
eSolar, Brightsource, or Abengoa, have already
beaten the price of photovoltaic and natural gas,
and they have plans to beat the price of coal in the
near future.
With an increasingly industrializing planet, the
leaders in solar thermal technology have an
ever-growing market. The issue is, and will always
be, how to make solar thermal technology more
economical. There are currently two methods for
solar thermal collection. The first is line focus
collection. The second is point focus collection.
Line focus is less expensive, technically less
difficult, but not as efficient as point focus. The
basis for this technology is a parabola-shaped
mirror, which rotates on a single axis throughout the
day tracking the sun. Point focus technique requires
a series of mirrors surrounding a central tower, also
known as a power tower. The mirrors focus the
sun’s rays onto a point on the tower, which then
transfers the heat into more usable energy.
Major Solar Thermal Players
Spain and Australia are the current leading
countries in solar thermal energy production. Spain
already produces a large portion of their electricity
though their solar thermal facilities, some built by
solar thermal powerhouses such as Acciona and
Abengoa – the creator of the PS10 and soon PS20.
The California based solar thermal company,
eSolar, and the Israeli company, Brightsource, are
fast growing competitors.
Abengoa is opening the first power tower to be
used for commercial energy production. eSolar is
working with Southern California Edison to use
solar thermal technology to generate 245 MW of
power. Similarly, BrightSource has contracts with
Pacific Gas and Electric Company to bring even
more solar thermal generated power to California.
Technical Challenges
Despite the sun’s enormous size, and because of
its distance from the earth, it is not quite a point
source. It actually occupies 1/2° in the sky. When
making a concentrator, the architecture of the
system needs to take into account this subtended
angle of the sun.
The maximum theoretical concentration of line
focus is 212:1. Line focus solar thermal plants are
reporting 80-100x concentration, with some
claiming 112x – in other words, people are
achieving about half of the maximum theoretical
concentration. It’s hard to get more than this
because of errors in the parabolic shape, thermal
expansion and shifting of parts over time, and
optical alignment of all the moving parts. At these
concentrations a steam turbine can be run at
roughly 25% efficiency. Even with great
technological advancements, the ceiling is set at a
maximum of 212:1, so there is not much room
for growth.
Point focus, however, has a much higher maximum
concentration ratio at 44,000:1. Current technology
is reaching 1,000x concentration. Despite being a
small fraction of the maximum concentration ratio,
point focus’ concentration can run a steam turbine
at anywhere from 35-50% efficiency. Also, with
point focus concentration, there is a lot of room to
further improve and run at higher temperatures, and
thus even higher efficiencies.
Technical Challenges (cont.)
Obviously, such growth will have a natural cap, but
currently such expansion and consumption is
severely impacting global climate change. With the
development and advancement of solar thermal,
the rapid growth of China and other industrializing
nations will hopefully be diverted away from coal.
Large scale conversion to solar around the world
will not occur until solar is the cheaper alternative,
and industry leaders hope to reach that point within
a decade.
Such technological replacements allow the
exploitation of the Leapfrog Effect, which will be an
important factor in global development and
emergent markets in an era facing serious climate
change. The Leapfrog Effect is a principle that
certain technological progressions are necessary,
but only once. The end result, or product, is
autonomous from all the preceding stages. For
example, look at the slow transition that
industrialized nations are making right now from
coal to alternative energies. They all needed coal
technology in order to develop new, cleaner
methods of energy production. Now that these new
technologies are developed, however, developing
nations and emerging markets need not follow the
same path, but instead could just leapfrog over
coal-fired to the cleaner technologies.
Land Requirements
Another challenge for solar thermal is the amount of
space required for efficient production of energy.
Not only space, but space that gets a consistent
amount of direct sunlight. Solar thermal power
plants typically require 1/4 to 1 square mile or more
of land. One silver lining of global climate change
and human impact on the land is that more and
more farmland is becoming unsuitable for
agricultural production. This land, presumably
originally chosen for its sun exposure, begs to be
used for solar thermal energy production. Utilization
of desertification can prove to be a boon for solar
thermal real estate procurement and growth.
With solar thermal technologies being developed
and advanced by companies such as eSolar,
Brightsource, Abengoa, Acciona, Ausra and Schott
Solar, the world has a new alternative. The benefits
of eliminating coal from our energy diet are many.
By not burning fossil fuels, countries can be truly
energy independent. Also, by limiting, and hopefully
eliminating, carbon emissions, a nation’s pollution
will not be windswept into another nation’s
territories, further cementing the concept of
independence.
solar-thermal.pdf (Size: 2.81 MB / Downloads: 88)
Solar Thermal vs. Photovoltaic
It is important to understand that solar thermal
technology is not the same as solar panel, or
photovoltaic, technology. Solar thermal electric
energy generation concentrates the light from the
sun to create heat, and that heat is used to run a
heat engine, which turns a generator to make
electricity. The working fluid that is heated by the
concentrated sunlight can be a liquid or a gas.
Different working fluids include water, oil, salts, air,
nitrogen, helium, etc. Different engine types include
steam engines, gas turbines, Stirling engines, etc.
All of these engines can be quite efficient, often
between 30% and 40%, and are capable of
producing 10’s to 100’s of megawatts of power.
Photovoltaic, or PV energy conversion, on the other
hand, directly converts the sun’s light into electricity.
This means that solar panels are only effective
during daylight hours because storing electricity is
not a particularly efficient process. Heat storage is a
far easier and efficient method, which is what
makes solar thermal so attractive for large-scale
energy production. Heat can be stored during the
day and then converted into electricity at night.
Solar thermal plants that have storage capacities
can drastically improve both the economics and the
dispatchability of solar electricity.
Competing with Fossil Fuels
Solar thermal power currently leads the way as the
most cost-effective solar technology on a large
scale. It currently beats other PV systems, and it
also can beat the cost of electricity from fossil fuels
such as natural gas. In terms of low-cost and high
negative environmental impact, nothing competes
with coal.
But major solar thermal industry players such as
eSolar, Brightsource, or Abengoa, have already
beaten the price of photovoltaic and natural gas,
and they have plans to beat the price of coal in the
near future.
With an increasingly industrializing planet, the
leaders in solar thermal technology have an
ever-growing market. The issue is, and will always
be, how to make solar thermal technology more
economical. There are currently two methods for
solar thermal collection. The first is line focus
collection. The second is point focus collection.
Line focus is less expensive, technically less
difficult, but not as efficient as point focus. The
basis for this technology is a parabola-shaped
mirror, which rotates on a single axis throughout the
day tracking the sun. Point focus technique requires
a series of mirrors surrounding a central tower, also
known as a power tower. The mirrors focus the
sun’s rays onto a point on the tower, which then
transfers the heat into more usable energy.
Major Solar Thermal Players
Spain and Australia are the current leading
countries in solar thermal energy production. Spain
already produces a large portion of their electricity
though their solar thermal facilities, some built by
solar thermal powerhouses such as Acciona and
Abengoa – the creator of the PS10 and soon PS20.
The California based solar thermal company,
eSolar, and the Israeli company, Brightsource, are
fast growing competitors.
Abengoa is opening the first power tower to be
used for commercial energy production. eSolar is
working with Southern California Edison to use
solar thermal technology to generate 245 MW of
power. Similarly, BrightSource has contracts with
Pacific Gas and Electric Company to bring even
more solar thermal generated power to California.
Technical Challenges
Despite the sun’s enormous size, and because of
its distance from the earth, it is not quite a point
source. It actually occupies 1/2° in the sky. When
making a concentrator, the architecture of the
system needs to take into account this subtended
angle of the sun.
The maximum theoretical concentration of line
focus is 212:1. Line focus solar thermal plants are
reporting 80-100x concentration, with some
claiming 112x – in other words, people are
achieving about half of the maximum theoretical
concentration. It’s hard to get more than this
because of errors in the parabolic shape, thermal
expansion and shifting of parts over time, and
optical alignment of all the moving parts. At these
concentrations a steam turbine can be run at
roughly 25% efficiency. Even with great
technological advancements, the ceiling is set at a
maximum of 212:1, so there is not much room
for growth.
Point focus, however, has a much higher maximum
concentration ratio at 44,000:1. Current technology
is reaching 1,000x concentration. Despite being a
small fraction of the maximum concentration ratio,
point focus’ concentration can run a steam turbine
at anywhere from 35-50% efficiency. Also, with
point focus concentration, there is a lot of room to
further improve and run at higher temperatures, and
thus even higher efficiencies.
Technical Challenges (cont.)
Obviously, such growth will have a natural cap, but
currently such expansion and consumption is
severely impacting global climate change. With the
development and advancement of solar thermal,
the rapid growth of China and other industrializing
nations will hopefully be diverted away from coal.
Large scale conversion to solar around the world
will not occur until solar is the cheaper alternative,
and industry leaders hope to reach that point within
a decade.
Such technological replacements allow the
exploitation of the Leapfrog Effect, which will be an
important factor in global development and
emergent markets in an era facing serious climate
change. The Leapfrog Effect is a principle that
certain technological progressions are necessary,
but only once. The end result, or product, is
autonomous from all the preceding stages. For
example, look at the slow transition that
industrialized nations are making right now from
coal to alternative energies. They all needed coal
technology in order to develop new, cleaner
methods of energy production. Now that these new
technologies are developed, however, developing
nations and emerging markets need not follow the
same path, but instead could just leapfrog over
coal-fired to the cleaner technologies.
Land Requirements
Another challenge for solar thermal is the amount of
space required for efficient production of energy.
Not only space, but space that gets a consistent
amount of direct sunlight. Solar thermal power
plants typically require 1/4 to 1 square mile or more
of land. One silver lining of global climate change
and human impact on the land is that more and
more farmland is becoming unsuitable for
agricultural production. This land, presumably
originally chosen for its sun exposure, begs to be
used for solar thermal energy production. Utilization
of desertification can prove to be a boon for solar
thermal real estate procurement and growth.
With solar thermal technologies being developed
and advanced by companies such as eSolar,
Brightsource, Abengoa, Acciona, Ausra and Schott
Solar, the world has a new alternative. The benefits
of eliminating coal from our energy diet are many.
By not burning fossil fuels, countries can be truly
energy independent. Also, by limiting, and hopefully
eliminating, carbon emissions, a nation’s pollution
will not be windswept into another nation’s
territories, further cementing the concept of
independence.