The term solar power commonly conjures images of blue or black rectangular panels placed on the roof of a house, providing cost and pollution free electricity to the lucky homeowners beneath. But these panels are not the only way the sun’s energy can be turned into electrical power. One major way of creating commercial scale electricity is with Concentrated Thermal technology. Power stations using this are in operation and these work on a scale similar to coal fired power stations. How does this technology work?
The panels we see on house roofs convert the sun’s light directly into electricity. Concentrated Thermal does not do this. Rather, it works with the heat of the sun’s rays. Most of us will have played with a magnifying glass as children, setting fire to cardboard, wood and perhaps the odd unhappy ant. Concentrating the sun’s light and heat through a lens is making it act as a heliostat. Concentrated Thermal also collects the heat of the sun’s rays but it does so by using mirrors rather than lenses.
If a mirror is made into a dish shape known as a parabola it will focus all the sunlight that falls on it into one focal point. This assumes that the mirror is facing directly at the sun. The larger the area of the mirror, the more energy will be collected into that single point. Large mirrors can produce extremely high temperatures in that focal point. You may have seen dish shaped mirrors being sold as solar cookers for tasks like boiling water. These operate on the same principle.
In commercial production of electricity, a tube containing synthetic oil is placed at the focal point of the mirror. This oil is able to reach temperatures in the many hundreds of degrees. This oil can then be cycled from the heating dish to a turbine where it heats water to make steam. Then the turbine can generate electricity in the same way as a coal fired power station.
The bigger the total mirror surface, the more heat is harvested and therefore more electricity can be generated. Power stations employing this technology consist of seemingly endless rows of curved trough mirrors, all moving with the sun throughout the day to maximize electricity production. Concentrated Thermal power stations can also produce electricity at night. Throughout the day excess energy is stored in vats of molten salt. At night the heat given off by these salts cooling is used to continue steam and therefore electricity production.
Concentrated Thermal technology is fairly basic, cheap, safe and very reliable. As long as the sun is shining this method of power generation is very efficient, and it produces no pollution aside from that required by the initial construction of the plant.
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