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Many people are familiar with solar photovoltaic (PV) or solar hot water systems. But in sunny spaces across the world, another lesser-known technology exists as a different way to take advantage of the sun''s energy: concentrated solar power (CSP). In this article, we''ll describe how concentrated solar power technology works, the types of concentrated solar systems, and how the technology compares to the solar photovoltaic panels you might install on your property.
Have you ever tried using a mirror or magnifying glass to fry an egg on the pavement during a hot, sunny day? Concentrated solar power (also known as concentrating solar power or concentrating solar-thermal power) works in a similar way conceptually. CSP technology produces electricity by concentrating and harnessing solar thermal energy using mirrors. At a CSP installation, mirrors reflect the sun to a receiver that collects and stores the heat energy. That heat is used to power an engine or turbine that is connected to an electricity generator.
CSP is used in utility-scale applications to help provide power to an electricity grid. They can be paired with energy storage technologies to store thermal energy to use when solar irradiance is low, like during the night or on a cloudy day. Today, roughly 1,815 megawatts (MW) of CSP plants operate in the United States.
Generally, concentrated solar power is not installed at a residential scale and instead will almost always be installed over a large area as a utility-scale generating facility. For residential and commercial property owners, solar photovoltaic panels are the best way to harness the sun''s energy for use.
With parabolic dish concentrated solar power systems, mirrors are set up in a satellite-dish shape with a receiver mounted in the middle, away from the mirrors. Sunlight reflects off the mirrors and hits the receiver focal point, which typically has a heat engine mounted directly on it.
Two of the biggest advantages of parabolic dishes over other types of CSP systems are that they require very little land space and don''t need to be installed on a flat surface.
Solar power towers have a host of mirror reflectors at the ground level, also known as heliostats. These heliostats run on a tracker system and concentrate sunlight throughout the day, reflecting it to a single point at the top of a tower that hosts the receiver.
Within the receiver is a heat transfer fluid that will warm up, generate steam, and then power a turbine in the generator, creating electricity. Oftentimes this heat transfer fluid is a molten salt, which can retain heat more effectively than many other fluids, given its high heating capacity.
Parabolic troughs are the most common type of CSP system used throughout the world. Long, u-shaped mirrors reflect sunlight towards a tube that runs along their center, parallel to the mirrors. Inside the tube is a heat transfer fluid that gets heated as sunlight is reflected toward the tube. Once hot, this liquid runs to a central power generator that will use the heat to produce electricity.
Similar to parabolic troughs, linear Fresnel systems use rows of mirrors with a parallel absorber that carries a heat transfer fluid. The biggest distinguishing factor between these two technologies is that parabolic troughs remain stationary, while linear Fresnel systems use trackers systems on the mirrors to maximize the amount of thermal energy concentrated and reflected towards the absorber.
The solar-to-electricity efficiency of a CSP system depends on many factors, including the type of CSP system, the receiver, and the engine. Most concentrated solar power technologies will have an efficiency somewhere between 7 and 25 percent.
To compare this to the electricity conversion efficiencies of other renewable energy technologies, wind turbines can achieve up to 59 percent efficiency, and hydropower systems can have efficiencies of up to 90 percent. When it comes to solar photovoltaics, the conversion efficiencies of solar cells are in a similar range as CSP; most solar panels available on the market today have efficiencies between 14 and 23 percent.
Concentrated solar power has gained a lot of traction worldwide for utility-scale solar projects. CSP plants need to be placed in areas with high irradiance because the mirrors need to reflect as much concentrated light as possible. Another important note about CSP plants is that they need five to ten acres of land per MW of capacity, and since CSP plants are most cost-effective and efficient when built in sizes of 100 MW or higher, a huge amount of land (most times in a desert) is needed for these types of projects.
The Ivanpah power tower CSP plant produces 392 Megawatts of electricity annually with the help of 173,500 heliostats and three 450-foot power towers spread out over 3,500 acres in the Mojave desert. When the installation commenced in 2011, it created 1,000 jobs and now powers over 100,000 homes in the United States. Along with a steep economic impact, Ivanpah cuts out 500,000 metric tons of CO2 from our environment as well.
Mojave Solar One was developed by Abengoa Solar in 2011 with a $1.2 billion dollar loan. Unlike Ivanpah, Mojave One is a parabolic trough plant, which means it uses carefully placed mirrors to heat water in a large tube to power a generator that creates electricity. The Mojave Solar One CSP plant produces enough electricity to power over 90,000 homes.
Located in Blythe, California, the Genesis Solar Energy Project is a 250 MW concentrated solar power installation. This particular solar project uses heated synthetic oil to propel a steam turbine, and its 600,000 parabolic mirrors span over 1,800 acres.
Also known as the Noor Power Station, the Ouarzazate Solar Power Station is the biggest operating solar power plant in the world, with an installed capacity of 510 megawatts. Spanning across the equivalent of 3,500 soccer fields, this power tower CSP solar plant The Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy has even installed PV solar panels to ramp up production by 72 more megawatts.
Though CSP and PV have similar efficiencies, there are a few notable differences between them when it comes to applications, costs, and storage capacity. The main difference between CSP and photovoltaics is that CSP uses the sun''s heat energy indirectly to create electricity, and PV solar panels use the sun''s lightenergy, which is converted to electricity via the photovoltaic effect.
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