ABSTRACT
CONCENTRATED SOLAR
POWER systems generate solar
power by using mirrors or lenses to
concentrate a large area of sunlight
onto a receiver.
CONCENTRATED
SOLAR POWER
PROJECT 1(PW-ME581)
GROUP MEMBERS:
PROJECT GUIDE: SANJIB KUNDU
ROLL:
16900719076 TIRTHA DAS
16900719079 SWAGATO BISWAS
16900719080 SUSHANTO DAS
16900719094 SOUMIT GHOSH
16900719098 SOMNATH KOLEY
16900719109 ANIKET GHOSH
16900719115 ANEEK BANERJEE
16900718096 MAINAK CHATTERJEE
CONCENTRATED SOLAR POWER:
The picture above might look like a death ray, but it's not! It's actually one enormous,
very accurate magnifying glass.
This magnifying glass has a technical name, a sunlight refinery. It can be used somewhere,
really sunny by just plopping down a bunch of mirrors that bounces the sunlight into a single
spot and can melt just about anything.
The main purpose of implementing this simple thinking is because manufacturing steel or
cement requires a lot of heat and making something super hot has historically meant burning
dinosaurs. By looking at the massive carbon footprint that is associated with these industrial
applications, it can't be ignored that it sums to around twenty percent of global carbon
emissions to be precise. And because this technology is so good, it might just change the
entire energy industry. And prevent various social and economical miseries in the process all
over the planet.
WHAT IS CONCENTRATED SOLAR POWER?
Concentrated solar power (CSP, also known as concentrating solar power,
concentrated solar thermal) systems generate solar power by using mirrors or lenses to
concentrate a large area of sunlight onto a receiver. Electricity is generated when the
concentrated light is converted to heat (solar thermal energy), which drives a heat engine
(usually a steam turbine) connected to an electrical power generator or powers a
thermochemical reaction.
CSP had a global total installed capacity of 5,500 MW in 2018, up from 354 MW in 2005.
Spain accounted for almost half of the world's capacity, at 2,300 MW, despite no new capacity
entering commercial operation in the country since 2013. The United States follows with
1,740 MW. Interest is also notable in North Africa and the Middle East, as well as India and
China. The global market was initially dominated by parabolic-trough plants, which accounted
for 90% of CSP plants at one point. Since about 2010, central power tower CSP has been
favoured in new plants due to its higher temperature operation – up to 565 °C (1,049 °F) vs.
trough's maximum of 400 °C (752 °F) – which promises greater efficiency.
Among the larger CSP projects are the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility (392 MW) in the
United States, which uses solar power tower technology without thermal energy storage, and
the Ouarzazate Solar Power Station in Morocco,[10] which combines trough and tower
technologies for a total of 510 MW with several hours of energy storage.
As a thermal energy generating power station, CSP has more in common with thermal
power stations such as coal, gas, or geothermal. A CSP plant can incorporate thermal energy
storage, which stores energy either in the form of sensible heat or as latent heat (for example,
using molten salt), which enables these plants to continue to generate electricity whenever it is
needed, day or night. This makes CSP a dispatchable form of solar. Dispatchable renewable
energy is particularly valuable in places where there is already a high penetration of
photovoltaics (PV), such as California because demand for electric power peaks near sunset
just as PV capacity ramps down (a phenomenon referred to as duck curve).
CSP is often compared to photovoltaic solar (PV) since they both use solar energy.
While solar PV experienced huge growth in recent years due to falling prices, Solar CSP
growth has been slow due to technical difficulties and high prices. In 2017, CSP represented
less than 2% of worldwide installed capacity of solar electricity plants. However, CSP can more
easily store energy during the night, making it more competitive with dispatchable generators
and baseload plants.
The DEWA project in Dubai, under construction in 2019, held the world record for
lowest CSP price in 2017 at US$73 per MWh for its 700 MW combined trough and tower
project: 600 MW of trough, 100 MW of tower with 15 hours of thermal energy storage daily.
Base-load CSP tariff in the extremely dry Atacama region of Chile reached below $50/MWh in
2017 auctions.
HISTORY:
Solar steam engine for water pumping, near Los Angeles circa 1901
A legend has it that Archimedes used a "burning glass" to concentrate sunlight on the
invading Roman fleet and repel them from Syracuse. In 1973 a Greek scientist, Dr. Loannis
Sakkas, curious about whether Archimedes could really have destroyed the Roman fleet in 212
BC, lined up nearly 60 Greek sailors, each holding an oblong mirror tipped to catch the sun's
rays and direct them at a tar-covered plywood silhouette 49 m (160 ft) away. The ship caught
fire after a few minutes; however, historians continue to doubt the Archimedes story.
In 1866, Auguste Mouchout used a parabolic trough to produce steam for the first solar
steam engine. The first patent for a solar collector was obtained by the Italian Alessandro
Battaglia in Genoa, Italy, in 1886. Over the following years, inventors such as John Ericsson
and Frank Shuman developed concentrating solar-powered dеvices for irrigation, refrigеration,
and locomоtion. In 1913 Shuman finished a 55 horsepower (41 kW) parabolic solar thermal
energy station in Maadi, Egypt for irrigation.The first solar-power system using a mirror dish
was built by Dr. R.H. Goddard, who was already well known for his research on liquid-fueled
rockets and wrote an article in 1929 in which he asserted that all the previous obstacles had
been addressed.
Professor Giovanni Francia (1911–1980) designed and built the first concentrated-solar
plant, which entered into operation in Sant'Ilario, near Genoa, Italy in 1968. This plant had the
architecture of today's power tower plants with a solar receiver in the center of a field of
solar collectors. The plant was able to produce 1 MW with superheated steam at 100 bar and
500 °C. The 10 MW Solar One power tower was developed in Southern California in 1981.
Solar One was converted into Solar Two in 1995, implementing a new design with a
molten salt mixture (60% sodium nitrate, 40% potassium nitrate) as the receiver working fluid
and as a storage medium. The molten salt approach proved effective, and Solar Two operated
successfully until it was decommissioned in 1999.The parabolic-trough technology of the
nearby Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS), begun in 1984, was more workable. The
354 MW SEGS was the largest solar power plant in the world, until 2014.
No commercial concentrated solar was constructed from 1990 when SEGS was
completed until 2006 when the Compact linear Fresnel reflector system at Liddell Power
Station in Australia was built. Few other plants were built with this design although the
5 MW Kimberlina Solar Thermal Energy Plant opened in 2009.
In 2007, 75 MW Nevada Solar One was built, a trough design and the first large plant
since SEGS. Between 2009 and 2013, Spain built over 40 parabolic trough systems,
standardized in 50 MW blocks.
Due to the success of Solar Two, a commercial power plant, called Solar Tres Power
Tower, was built in Spain in 2011, later renamed Gemasolar Thermosolar Plant. Gemasolar's
results paved the way for further plants of its type. Ivanpah Solar Power Facility was
constructed at the same time but without thermal storage, using natural gas to preheat water
each morning.
Most concentrated solar power plants use the parabolic trough design, instead of the
power tower or Fresnel systems. There have also been variations of parabolic trough systems
like the integrated solar combined cycle (ISCC) which combines troughs and conventional
fossil fuel heat systems.
CSP was originally treated as a competitor to photovoltaics, and Ivanpah was built
without energy storage, although Solar Two had included several hours of thermal storage. By
2015, prices for photovoltaic plants had fallen and PV commercial power was selling for 1⁄3 of
recent CSP contracts. However, increasingly, CSP was being bid with 3 to 12 hours of thermal
energy storage, making CSP a dispatchable form of solar energy.As such, it is increasingly seen
as competing with natural gas and PV with batteries for flexible, dispatchable power.
CURRENT TECHNOLOGY:
CSP is used to produce electricity (sometimes called solar thermoelectricity, usually
generated through steam). Concentrated-solar technology systems use mirrors or lenses with
tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight onto a small area. The concentrated light is
then used as heat or as a heat source for a conventional power plant (solar thermoelectricity).
The solar concentrators used in CSP systems can often also be used to provide industrial
process heating or cooling, such as in solar air conditioning.
Concentrating technologies exist in four optical types, namely parabolic trough, dish,
concentrating linear Fresnel reflector, and solar power tower. Parabolic trough and
concentrating linear Fresnel reflectors are classified as linear focus collector types, while dish
and solar tower are point focus types. Linear focus collectors achieve medium concentration
factors (50 suns and over), and point focus collectors achieve high concentration factors (over
500 suns). Although simple, these solar concentrators are quite far from the theoretical
maximum concentration. For example, the parabolic-trough concentration gives about 1⁄3 of
the theoretical maximum for the design acceptance angle, that is, for the same overall
tolerances for the system. Approaching the theoretical maximum may be achieved by using
more elaborate concentrators based on nonimaging optics.
Different types of concentrators produce different peak temperatures and
correspondingly varying thermodynamic efficiencies, due to differences in the way that they
track the sun and focus light. New innovations in CSP technology are leading systems to
become more and more cost-effective.
TYPES OF CSP:
1. PARABOLIC TROUGH:
Parabolic trough at a plant near Harper Lake, California
A parabolic trough consists of a linear parabolic reflector that concentrates light
onto a receiver positioned along the reflector's focal line. The receiver is a tube
positioned at the longitudinal focal line of the parabolic mirror and filled with a working
fluid. The reflector follows the sun during the daylight hours by tracking along a single
axis. A working fluid (e.g. molten salt) is heated to 150–350 °C (302–662 °F) as it flows
through the receiver and is then used as a heat source for a power generation system.
Trough systems are the most developed CSP technology. The Solar Energy Generating
Systems (SEGS) plants in California, the world's first commercial parabolic trough plants,
Acciona's Nevada Solar One near Boulder City, Nevada, and Andasol, Europe's first
commercial parabolic trough plant are representative, along with Plataforma Solar de
Almería's SSPS-DCS test facilities in Spain.
2. ENCLOSED TROUGH:
Oman: Construction Starts for World´s Largest Solar Steam Power Plant
Miraah
The design encapsulates the solar thermal system within a greenhouse-like
glasshouse. The glasshouse creates a protected environment to withstand the elements
that can negatively impact reliability and efficiency of the solar thermal system.
Lightweight curved solar-reflecting mirrors are suspended from the ceiling of the
glasshouse by wires. A single-axis tracking system positions the mirrors to retrieve the
optimal amount of sunlight. The mirrors concentrate the sunlight and focus it on a
network of stationary steel pipes, also suspended from the glasshouse structure. Water
is carried throughout the length of the pipe, which is boiled to generate steam when
intense solar radiation is applied. Sheltering the mirrors from the wind allows them to
achieve higher temperature rates and prevents dust from building up on the mirrors.
Glass Point Solar, the company that created the Enclosed Trough design, states its
technology can produce heat for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) for about $5 per
290 kWh (1,000,000 BTU) in sunny regions, compared to between $10 and $12 for
other conventional solar thermal technologies.
3. SOLAR POWER TOWER:
Ashalim Power Station, Israel, on its completion the tallest solar tower in
the world. It concentrates light from over 50,000 heliostats.
A solar power tower consists of an array of dual-axis tracking reflectors
(heliostats) that concentrate sunlight on a central receiver atop a tower; the receiver
contains a heat-transfer fluid, which can consist of water-steam or molten salt. Optically
a solar power tower is the same as a circular Fresnel reflector. The working fluid in the
receiver is heated to 500–1000 °C (773–1,273 K or 932–1,832 °F) and then used as a
heat source for a power generation or energy storage system. An advantage of the solar
tower is the reflectors can be adjusted instead of the whole tower. Power-tower
development is less advanced than trough systems, but they offer higher efficiency and
better energy storage capability. Beam down tower application is also feasible with
heliostats to heat the working fluid.
The Solar Two in Daggett, California and the CESA-1 in Plataforma Solar de
Almeria Almeria, Spain, are the most representative demonstration plants. The Planta
Solar 10 (PS10) in Sanlucar la Mayor, Spain, is the first commercial utility-scale solar
power tower in the world. The 377 MW Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, located in the
Mojave Desert, is the largest CSP facility in the world, and uses three power towers.
Ivanpah generated only 0.652 TWh (63%) of its energy from solar means, and the other
0.388 TWh (37%) was generated by burning natural gas.
The PS10 solar power plant in Andalusia, Spain concentrates sunlight from a
field of heliostats onto a central solar power tower.
4. FRESNEL REFLECTORS:
Fresnel reflectors are made of many thin, flat mirror strips to concentrate sunlight
onto tubes through which working fluid is pumped. Flat mirrors allow more reflective
surface in the same amount of space than a parabolic reflector, thus capturing more of
the available sunlight, and they are much cheaper than parabolic reflectors. Fresnel
reflectors can be used in various size CSPs.
Fresnel reflectors are sometimes regarded as a technology with a worse output
than other methods. The cost efficiency of this model is what causes some to use this
instead of others with higher output ratings. Some new models of Fresnel Reflectors
with Ray Tracing capabilities have begun to be tested and have initially proved to yield
higher output than the standard version.
5. DISH STIRLING:
A Dish Stirling
A dish Stirling or dish engine system consists of a stand-alone parabolic reflector
that concentrates light onto a receiver positioned at the reflector's focal point. The
reflector tracks the Sun along two axes. The working fluid in the receiver is heated to
250–700 °C (482–1,292 °F) and then used by a Stirling engine to generate power.
Parabolic-dish systems provide high solar-to-electric efficiency (between 31% and 32%),
and their modular nature provides scalability. The Stirling Energy Systems (SES), United
Sun Systems (USS) and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) dishes at
UNLV, and Australian National University's Big Dish in Canberra, Australia are
representative of this technology. A world record for solar to electric efficiency was set
at 31.25% by SES dishes at the National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF) in New
Mexico on 31 January 2008, a cold, bright day. According to its developer, Ripasso
Energy, a Swedish firm, in 2015 its Dish Sterling system being tested in the Kalahari
Desert in South Africa showed 34% efficiency. The SES installation in Maricopa, Phoenix
was the largest Stirling Dish power installation in the world until it was sold to United
Sun Systems. Subsequently, larger parts of the installation have been moved to China as
part of the huge energy demand.
WHAT IF WE COULD NOT ONLY HARNESS
THE POWER OF THE SUN, BUT ACTUALLY
USE IT TO RUN THE ENTIRE PLANET?
Concentrated solar power (CSP) has the potential to do just that — using arrays of
revolving mirrors called heliostats, light is reflected into a massive receiver. Thanks to recent
advancements in technology, the cost to replicate these Sunlight Refineries™ is dropping.
Soon solar energy will be cleaner and cheaper than using fossil fuels, which could mean
adoption on a global scale.
Heliogen, a company founded by Bill Gross and backed by Bill Gates, wants to
eliminate all uses of fossil fuels. Using cameras, AI, and machine learning, they are working to
make these CSP systems smarter and much more efficient.
HELIOSTATS:
HELIOSTATS are the building blocks of a CONCENTRATED SOLAR TECHNOLOGY.
A heliostat is a device that includes a mirror, usually a plane mirror, which turns so as to
keep reflecting sunlight toward a predetermined target, compensating for the sun's apparent
motions in the sky. The target may be a physical object, distant from the heliostat, or a
direction in space.
Heliostats are AI driven and fitted with sensors to change its angle throughout the day
depending upon where the sunlight direction.
CONCENTRATED SOLAR THERMAL POWER
TOWER MINI MODEL:
1. Cutting small pieces of reeper, Fix Fisher/plugs to one end of both pieces Join two parts
using screws. So that it is flexible to move in two-dimension.
2. Cutting small pieces of aluminum sheet dimensions 2” * 0.5” and cutting small pieces of
mirrors using glass cutter, by taking care while handling glass. Then connecting all the
components together.
3. Connecting aluminum pieces on the reeper carefully and connecting glass pieces on the
reeper-aluminum arrangement.
4. Even in a real Power plant heliostats don’t require any heavy foundation work. In this
project, we can use hard boards, ACP sheets etc to fix heliostats around the tower.
Taking 3*3F piece of ACP, making 3 circles with adequate displacement between
heliostats. Using a hand drill to make 4 mm holes. Then connecting all 100 heliostats on
a 3*3 feet ACP.
5. Now constructing the tower, receiver, and other necessary lighting systems. We can
use strip LEDs having different colors- red, green, white, blue, red for hot molten salt;
Green for cold molten salt; White for steam; Blue for Water Stick all the strips on the
project components. Then connecting wires using soldering Iron.
EFFICIENCY:
The efficiency of a concentrating solar power system will depend on the technology
used to convert the solar power to electrical energy, the operating temperature of the
receiver and the heat rejection, thermal losses in the system, and the presence or absence of
other system losses; in addition to the conversion efficiency, the optical system which
concentrates the sunlight will also add additional losses.
Real-world systems claim a maximum conversion efficiency of 23-35% for "power
tower" type systems, operating at temperatures from 250 to 565 °C, with the higher efficiency
number assuming a combined cycle turbine. Dish Stirling systems, operating at temperatures of
550-750 °C; claim an efficiency of about 30%. Due to variation in sun incidence during the day,
the average conversion efficiency achieved is not equal to these maximum efficiencies and the
net annual solar-to- electricity efficiencies are 7-20% for pilot power tower systems, and 12-
25% for demonstration-scale Stirling dish systems.
THEORY:
The maximum conversion efficiency of any thermal to electrical energy system is given
by the Carnot efficiency, which represents a theoretical limit to the efficiency that can be
achieved by any system, set by the laws of thermodynamics. Real-world systems do not
achieve the Carnot efficiency.
The conversion efficiency of the incident solar radiation into mechanical work depends
on the thermal radiation properties of the solar receiver and on the heat engine (e.g. steam
turbine). Solar irradiation is first converted into heat by the solar receiver with the efficiency
and subsequently the heat is converted into mechanical energy by the heat engine with the
efficiency, using Carnot's principle. The mechanical energy is then converted into electrical
energy by a generator.
REAL LIFE APPLICATION:
SPAIN
Andasol Solar Power Station in Spain
In 2008 Spain launched the first commercial scale CSP market in Europe. Until 2012,
solar-thermal electricity generation was initially eligible for feed-in tariff payments (art. 2 RD
661/2007) - leading to the creation of the largest CSP fleet in the world which at 2.3 GW of
installed capacity contributes about 5TWh of power to the Spanish grid every year.
AUSTRALIA
Several CSP dishes have been set up in remote Aboriginal settlements in the Northern
Territory: Hermannsburg, Yuendumu and Lajamanu.
CHINA
In 2016 China announced its intention to build a batch of 20 technologically diverse CSP
demonstration projects in the context of the 13th Five-Year Plan, with the intention of
building up an internationally competitive CSP industry.
INDIA
In March 2020, Solar Energy Corporation OF India (SECI) called for 5000 MW
tenders which can be combination of Solar PV, Solar thermal with storage and Coal based
power (minimum 51% from renewable sources) to supply round the clock power at minimum
80% yearly availability.
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS:
CSP has a number of environmental effects, particularly on water use, land use and the
use of hazardous materials. Water is generally used for cooling and to clean mirrors. Some
projects are looking into various approaches to reduce the water and cleaning agents used,
including the use of barriers, non-stick coatings on mirrors, water misting systems, and others.
WATER USE:
Concentrating solar power plants with wet-cooling systems have the highest water-
consumption intensities of any conventional type of electric power plant; only fossil-fuel plants
with carbon-capture and storage may have higher water intensities.
Although many older thermoelectric power plants with once-through cooling or cooling
ponds use more water than CSP, meaning that more water passes through their systems, most
of the cooling water returns to the water body available for other uses, and they consume less
water by evaporation.
EFFECTS ON WILDLIFE:
Dead warbler burned in mid-air by solar thermal power plant
Insects can be attracted to the bright light caused by concentrated solar technology, and
as a result birds that hunt them can be killed by being burned if they fly near the point where
light is being focused. This can also affect raptors who hunt the birds. Federal wildlife officials
were quoted by opponents as calling the Ivanpah power towers "mega traps" for wildlife.
Some media sources have reported that concentrated solar power plants have injured
or killed large numbers of birds due to intense heat from the concentrated sunrays. Some of
the claims may have been overstated or exaggerated.
According to rigorous reporting, in over six months, 133 singed birds were counted. By
focusing no more than four mirrors on any one place in the air during standby, at Crescent
Dunes Solar Energy Project, in three months, the death rate dropped to zero.
REFERENCES:
https://newphysicist.com/make-concentrated-solar-
thermal-power-plant-model/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i
6aCoMnS-Vg
https://heliogen.com/
https://www.youtube.com/c/AumSum
https://www.google.co.in/
https://brave.com/
