Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
Solar power plants use the sun's rays to produce electricity. Photovoltaic plants and solar
thermal systems are the most commonly used solar technologies today.
There are two types of solar power plants. They are differentiated depending on how the
energy from the sun is converted into electricity - either via photovoltaic or "solar cells,"
or via solar thermal power plants.
Photovoltaic plants
A photovoltaic cell, commonly called a solar cell or PV, is a technology used to convert
solar energy directly into electricity. A photovoltaic cell is usually made from silicon
alloys.
Particles of solar energy, known as photons, strike the surface of a photovoltaic cell
between two semiconductors.
A solar thermal plant generates heat and electricity by concentrating the sun's energy.
That in turn builds steam that helps to feed a turbine and generator to produce
electricity.
1) Parabolic troughs
This is the most common type of solar thermal plant. A "solar field" usually contains
many parallel rows of solar parabolic trough collectors. They use parabola-shaped
reflectors to focus the sun at 30 to 100 times its normal intensity.
The method is used to heat a special type of fluid, which is then collected at a central
location to generate high-pressure, superheated steam.
This system uses hundreds to thousands of flat sun-tracking mirrors called heliostats to
reflect and concentrate the sun's energy onto a central receiver tower. The energy can
be concentrated as much as 1,500 times that of the energy coming in from the sun.
A test solar power tower exists in Juelich in the western German state of North-Rhine
Westphalia. It is spread over 18,000 square meters (194,000 square feet) and uses more
than 2,000 sun-tracking mirrors to reflect and concentrate the sun's energy onto a 60-
meter-high (200 foot high) central receiver tower.
The concentrated solar energy is used to heat the air in the tower to up to 700 degrees
Celsius (1,300 degrees Fahrenheit). The heat is captured in a boiler and is used to
produce electricity with the help of a steam turbine.
Solar thermal energy collectors work well even in adverse weather conditions. They're
used in the Mojave Desert in California and have withstood hailstorms and sandstorms.
3) Solar pond
This is a pool of saltwater which collects and stores solar thermal energy. It uses so-
called salinity-gradient technology.
Basically, the bottom layer of the pond is extremely hot - up to 85 degrees Celsius - and
acts as a transparent insulator, permitting sunlight to be trapped from which heat may
be withdrawn or stored for later use.
This technology has been used in Israel since 1984 to produce electricity.
What is a Solar Power Tower and How Do
They Work?
Download PDF Copy
Introduction
Solar One - The First Generation of Power Tower Plant
Solar Two - The Next Generation Solar Power Tower
Advantages of Using Molten Salt
Design and Construction of the Solar Two Power Tower
The Salt Mixture
Metal Corrosion in the Molten-Salt Environment
What are the Benefits of Solar Power Towers?
Environmental Impact of Solar Power Towers
Introduction
Solar power tower convert sunshine into clean electricity. The technology uses many large,
sun-tracking mirrors commonly referred to as heliostats to focus sunlight on a receiver at the
top of a tower.
A heat transfer fluid heated in the receiver is used to generate steam, which, in turn, is used in
a conventional turbine-generator to produce electricity. Early power towers such as the Solar
One plant uses steam as the heat transfer fluid. Current power towers such as Solar Two use
molten nitrate salt. Nitrate salt is used because of its superior heat transfer and energy storage
capabilities.
The Solar One thermal storage system extended the power generation capability of the plant
into the night and provided heat for generating low-grade steam for keeping parts of the plant
warm during off-hours and for morning startup.
Unfortunately, the Solar One thermal storage system was complex and thermodynamically
inefficient. Solar One also showed the disadvantages of a water/steam system, such as the
intermittent operation of the turbine due to cloud transcience and lack of effective thermal
storage.
A black Pyromark paint which is robust, resistant to high temperatures and thermal cycling
and absorbs 95% of the incident sunlight is used to coat the external surfaces of the tubes.
The receiver design has been optimized to absorb a maximum amount of solar energy while
reducing the heat losses due to convection and radiation.
The design including laser-welding, sophisticated tube-nozzle-header connections, a tube clip
design that facilitates tube expansion and contraction, and non-contact flux measurement
devices, allows the receiver to rapidly change temperature without being damaged.
Hot salt is pumped to a steam generating system when power is needed from the plant. These
hot salts produce superheated steam for a conventional Rankine-cycle turbine generator
system. From the steam generator, the salt is returned to the cold tank where it is stored and
eventually reheated in the receiver.