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Solar Technologies for Electricity Generation
Published in Peter F. Varadi, Frank Wouters, Allan R. Hoffman, Wolfgang Palz, Anil Cabraal, Richenda Van Leeuwen, The Sun is Rising in Africa and the Middle East, 2018
Peter F. Varadi, Frank Wouters, Allan R. Hoffman, Wolfgang Palz, Anil Cabraal, Richenda Van Leeuwen
Solar Power Tower CSP systems use sun tracking mirrors (heliostats) to focus light on the “receiver” on top of a tower (see Fig. 2.7). The receiver usually contains molten salt (sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate) as a heat storage medium. This material is usually selected because it is used in the chemical and metal industries as a heat transport fluid; so experience with molten- salt systems exists for non-solar applications. As indicated in Tables 2.3 and 2.4, there are only two solar power tower SPC planned or in operation in Africa and the Middle East.
Introduction
Published in Philip Wolfe, Solar Photovoltaic Projects in the Mainstream Power Market, 2013
Photovoltaics is not the only technology for converting solar energy, nor even the only solar electric generation technology. For solar hot water (SHW), energy is captured in the form of heat using flat-plate or evacuated-tube solar thermal panels. Another approach is to use an array of mirrors to concentrate the sun's heat onto a boiler used for power generation through a traditional steam cycle. This technology is normally called concentrated solar power (CSP), solar ‘power towers’ or solar thermal electricity (STE).
Solar Electric Systems
Published in Robert K. McMordie, Mitchel C. Brown, Robert S. Stoughton, Solar Energy Fundamentals, 2021
Robert K. McMordie, Mitchel C. Brown, Robert S. Stoughton
Solar power tower systems have been built which use water, liquid sodium, or air as the heat absorbing media at the receiver. The advantage molten salt provides over the other fluids is the ability of the molten salt to store thermal energy. This allows the molten salt solar power tower system to operate and produce electricity when the sun is not shining.
Recent advances in gas/steam power cycles for concentrating solar power
Published in International Journal of Ambient Energy, 2022
Achintya Sharma, Anoop Kumar Shukla, Onkar Singh, Meeta Sharma
Presently, there are five different solar power producing CSP technologies namely linear Fresnel reflector (LFR), parabolic dish systems (PDS), parabolic trough collector (PTC), solar power tower (SPT), and concentrated solar thermo electrics. These technologies are globally employed for medium to large scale operation in USA, Spain, China, and India. Figure 2(b) shows the contribution of each technology in worldwide operational CSP. Worldwide the most developed CSP technology is PTC. The solar power tower is gaining increasing importance due to benefits offered by it such as better efficiency, lesser operating costs, and better scale-up perspective. Table 1 provides various significant parameters for the assessment of prominent CSP technologies. CSP realises less than 2% of installed capacity of solar electricity plants throughout the world. Nevertheless, in recent years the declining cost of CSP plants are making this technology viable with other base-load power plants that use conventional fuel even in higher humidity atmosphere at sea level.
Examining the receiver heat loss, parametric optimization and exergy analysis of a solar power tower (SPT) system
Published in Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, 2020
In solar power tower (SPT) systems, heliostats reflect sunbeams by intensifying toward the receiver of the solar tower. The condensed sunbeams are absorbed by the receiver of the tower. And then, the high temperature generated on the tower receiver is converted to electricity by the power systems (Wei et al. 2010). There are many studies on the simulation, modeling and development of the SPT system. Xu et al. (2011), modeled and simulated a 1 MW capacity solar thermal tower plant by the use of modular modeling method. Results showed that the output of the manuscript could be a good reference for designing and operation of a solar thermal tower system (Xu et al. 2011b). Faille et al. (2014), studied the control design model for a solar tower plant. This paper contributed to the advancement of a control design model for a 1 MW solar tower system equipped with a heat storage facility (Faille et al. 2014). Yu et al. (2016), presented simulation and experimental research of 1 MW solar power tower plant in China. In this work, some crucial parameters: temperature, pressure and mass flow were selected in order to make a quantitative comparison. At the end of the simulation and experiments, similar results were evaluated and according to these results, the system was found as feasible on real solar power tower plant (Yu, Wang, and Xu 2016). Alexopoulos and Hoffschmidt (2010), carried out a future-oriented solar power tower plant developed for Greece and Cyprus. Results indicated that the potential of solar tower technology in both countries was quite higher than in Germany (Alexopoulos and Hoffschmidt 2010). Şenol et al. (2011), identified the necessary equipment for the design of a 10 MW solar power tower plant. In addition, it was made a cost analysis of the system (Şenol et al. 2011).