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I always wondered why not use a system like this to heat water and use turbine to generate electricity. Shouldn’t this get much higher output efficiency compare
by sfe22 4y ago
I always wondered why not use a system like this to heat water and use turbine to generate electricity. Shouldn’t this get much higher output efficiency compared to pv panels.
- nerdawson 4y agoSystems like that already exist. They’re known as Concentrated Solar Power: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power
- sfe22 4y agoThanks, that is awesome.
- danans 4y agoThe problem is that it's more expensive on a levelized cost of energy basis than solar and wind. It might be more competitive if it can be paired with thermal storage, but AFAIK that's not demonstrates at scale yet.
- baseline-shift 4y agoThe thermal energy storage aspect of CSP is how the heat is accessed to run the power block - it not paired with- like some kind of bolt-on extra - is definitely demonstrated at scale. Just not in the US, which only tried out 5 CSP plants, only 2 with storage. China is currently building 30 CSP plants - all with storage. Here's how thermal energy storage in CSP works https://www.solarpaces.org/how-csp-thermal-energy-storage-works/ https://www.solarpaces.org/how-csp-thermal-energy-storage-wo...
- airbreather 4y agoThe break even point might be near, currently every mirror is controlled by an open loop controller of some sophistocation to point exactly right relative to the sun, time of day and tower. But the CSIRO has a system where a camera looks at the mirrors from the tower and estimates quite well the mirror angle from the shade of blue reflected. This makes it closed loop control, one sensor for many mirrors and simple actuation like lead screw with raise/lower controls possible.
- danans 4y agoThat's good, because from my recollection, the really expensive parts of CSP are the complex heliostats, a great many of which are needed in order to reflect sufficient light on the target.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jws 4y agoThe maximum efficiency of a steam turbine is just shy of 50%, by the time you have integrated the whole plant, 23-35% is typical. (so says wikipedia) The sort of solar panels one would use in a large installation are around 23% efficient. So they are close in "power/hectare". From there it is capital costs and cost of operation that will make the decision.