WSolar thermal energy (STE) is a form of energy and a technology for harnessing solar energy to generate thermal energy for use in industry, and in the residential and commercial sectors.
WConcentrated solar power 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, which drives a heat engine connected to an electrical power generator or powers a thermochemical reaction.
WAn absorption heat pump (AHP) is a heat pump driven by thermal energy such as combustion of natural gas, steam solar-heated water, air or geothermal-heated water differently from compression heat pumps that are driven by mechanical energy.[citation needed] AHPs are more complex and require larger units compared to compression heat pumps. In particular, the lower electricity demand of such heat pumps is related to the liquid pumping only. Their applications are restricted to those cases when electricity is extremely expensive or a large amount of unutilized heat at suitable temperatures is available and when the cooling or heating output has a greater value than heat input consumed. Absorption refrigerators also work on the same principle, but are not reversible and cannot serve as a heat source.[citation needed]
WThe Andasol solar power station is a 150-megawatt (MW) concentrated solar power station and Europe's first commercial plant to use parabolic troughs. It is located near Guadix in Andalusia, Spain, and its name is a portmanteau of Andalusia and Sol. The Andasol plant uses tanks of molten salt as thermal energy storage to continue generating electricity, irrespective of whether the sun is shining or not.
WAriston Thermo SpA is an Italian corporation that produces heating systems and related products, marketed mainly under the Ariston, Chaffoteaux, Elco, Racold, Régent, Atag, NTI, HTP, Cuenod, Ecoflam and Thermowatt brands.
WCentral solar heating is the provision of central heating and hot water from solar energy by a system in which the water is heated centrally by arrays of solar thermal collectors and distributed through district heating pipe networks.
WCerro Dominador Solar Power Plant is a 210-megawatt (MW) combined concentrated solar power and photovoltaic plant located in the commune of María Elena in the Antofagasta Region of Chile, about 24 kilometres (15 mi) west-northwest of Sierra Gorda. The project was approved by the Chilean government in 2013 and construction was started by Abengoa Solar Chile, a branch of the multinational Abengoa Spain.
WThe Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project is a solar thermal power project with an installed capacity of 110 megawatt (MW) and 1.1 gigawatt-hours of energy storage located near Tonopah, about 190 miles (310 km) northwest of Las Vegas. Crescent Dunes was the first concentrated solar power (CSP) plant with a central receiver tower and advanced molten salt energy storage technology.
WeSolar is a privately held company that develops concentrating solar power (CSP) plant technology. The company was founded by the Pasadena-based business incubator Idealab in 2007 as a developer of CSP plant technology. The company aims to develop a low cost alternative to fossil fuels through a combination of small heliostats, modular architecture, and a high-precision sun-tracking system. In October 2017, an article in GreenTech Media suggested that eSolar ceased business in late 2016.
WA Fresnel lens is a type of composite compact lens originally developed by French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827) for lighthouses. It has been called "the invention that saved a million ships."
WThe Genesis Solar Energy Project is a concentrated solar power station located in the Mojave Desert on 1,920 acres (780 ha) of Bureau of Land Management land, in eastern Riverside County, California. The plant is owned/managed by Genesis Solar, LLC, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources, LLC. The Genesis Solar Energy Project is located about 25 miles (40 km) west of Blythe, in the Lower Colorado River Valley. The plant was built in the Colorado Desert along an ancient trade route that native people had traveled for thousands of years. The route traversed the Sonoran Desert and enabled trade between the Colorado River and the coast.
WGlassPoint Solar is a private company founded in 2009 that designs and manufactures solar steam generators that use solar thermal technology to generate steam for industrial processes.
WHybrid solar lighting (HSL) or hybrid lighting systems combine the use of solar with artificial light for interior illumination by channelling sunlight through fiber optic cable bundles to provide solar light into rooms without windows or skylights, and by supplementing this natural light with artificial light—typically LED—as required.
WThe Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is a concentrated solar thermal plant in the Mojave Desert. It is located at the base of Clark Mountain in California, across the state line from Primm, Nevada. The plant has a gross capacity of 392 megawatts (MW). It deploys 173,500 heliostats, each with two mirrors focusing solar energy on boilers located on three 459 ft tall solar power towers. The first unit of the system was connected to the electrical grid in September 2013 for an initial synchronisation test. The facility formally opened on February 13, 2014. In 2014, it was the world's largest solar thermal power station.
WJülich Solar Tower is a 60-metre (200 ft) high experimental concentrated solar power (CSP) tower, Germany's sole plant using this type of solar power technology. In September 2008 the plant was put into operation on a trial basis. Over 2,000 dual-axis sun-tracking mirrors heat air to 700 °C, which is used to generate steam which flows through a turbine to generate electricity. Insulated steel tanks allow storage of heat for 1.5 hours in the event of clouds passing over. The total electric output of the plant is 1.5 MW. In 2011 it was sold to the German Aerospace Center.
WKhi Solar One (KSO) is a solar power tower solar thermal power plant, located in the Northern Cape Region of South Africa. Khi Solar One is 50 megawatts (MW), and is the first solar tower plant in Africa. It covers an area of 140 hectares.
WNevada Solar One is a concentrated solar power plant, with a nominal capacity of 64 MW and maximum steam turbine power output up to 72 MW net (75 MW gross), spread over an area of 400 acres (160 ha). The projected CO2 emissions avoided is equivalent to taking approximately 20,000 cars off the road. The project required an investment of $266 million USD, and the project officially went into operation in June 2007. Electricity production is estimated to be 134 GWh (gigawatt hours) per year.
WOuarzazate Solar Power Station (OSPS), also called Noor Power Station is a solar power complex located in the Drâa-Tafilalet region in Morocco, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from Ouarzazate town, in Ghessat rural council area. At 510 MW, it is the world's largest concentrated solar power plant. With an additional 72 MW photovoltaic system the entire project is planned to produce 582 MW at peak when finished and is being built in three phases and in four parts. The total project's estimated cost is around $2.5 billion.
WA parabolic trough is a type of solar thermal collector that is straight in one dimension and curved as a parabola in the other two, lined with a polished metal mirror. The sunlight which enters the mirror parallel to its plane of symmetry is focused along the focal line, where objects are positioned that are intended to be heated. In a solar cooker, for example, food is placed at the focal line of a trough, which is cooked when the trough is aimed so the Sun is in its plane of symmetry.
WPhotovoltaic thermal collectors, typically abbreviated as PVT collectors and also known as hybrid solar collectors, photovoltaic thermal solar collectors, PV/T collectors or solar cogeneration systems, are power generation technologies that convert solar radiation into usable thermal and electrical energy. PVT collectors combine photovoltaic solar cells, which convert sunlight into electricity, with a solar thermal collector, which transfers the otherwise unused waste heat from the PV module to a heat transfer fluid. By combining electricity and heat generation within the same component, these technologies can reach a higher overall efficiency than solar photovoltaic (PV) or solar thermal (T) alone.
WThe PS10 Solar Power Plant, is the world's first commercial concentrating solar power tower operating near Seville, in Andalusia, Spain. The 11 megawatt (MW) solar power tower produces electricity with 624 large movable mirrors called heliostats. It took four years to build and so far cost €35 million (US$46 million). PS10 produces about 23,400 megawatt-hours (MW·h) per year, for which it receives €271 (US$360) per MW·h under its power purchase agreement, equating to a revenue of €6.3 million per year.
WThe PS20 solar power plant (PS20) solar power plant is a solar thermal energy plant in Sanlucar la Mayor near Seville in Andalusia, Spain. It was the world's most powerful solar power tower until the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in California became operational in 2014. The 20 megawatt (MW) solar power tower produces electricity with large movable mirrors called heliostats.
WThe RETScreen Clean Energy Management Software is a software package developed by the Government of Canada. RETScreen Expert was highlighted at the 2016 Clean Energy Ministerial held in San Francisco. The Government of Canada's Treasury Board Secretariat uses RETScreen Expert as its greenhouse gas reporting tool for all federal departments and agencies required to report emissions.
WIn solar thermal collectors, a selective surface or selective absorber is a means of increasing its operation temperature and/or efficiency. The selectivity is defined as the ratio of solar radiation absorption (αsol) to thermal infrared radiation emission (εtherm).
WShams Solar Power Station is a concentrating solar power station near Madinat Zayed, Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates. The solar power station is located approximately 120 kilometres (75 mi) southwest of Abu Dhabi and 6 kilometres (4 mi) from Madinat Zayed on the road from Tarif to the Liwa Oasis. It became operational on 17 March 2013.
WThe Solana Generating Station is a solar power plant near Gila Bend, Arizona, about 70 miles (110 km) southwest of Phoenix, completed in 2013. When commissioned it was the largest parabolic trough plant in the world and the first U.S. solar plant with molten salt thermal energy storage. Built by the Spanish company Abengoa Solar, it has a total capacity of 280 megawatts (MW) gross, from two 140 MW gross (125 MW net) steam turbine generators, which is enough to power 70,000 homes while avoiding around 475,000 tons of CO2 every year. Its name is the Spanish term for "sunny spot".
WA solar combisystem provides both solar space heating and cooling as well as hot water from a common array of solar thermal collectors, usually backed up by an auxiliary non-solar heat source.
WA solar cooker is a device which uses the energy of direct sunlight to heat, cook or pasteurize drink and other food materials. Many solar cookers currently in use are relatively inexpensive, low-tech devices, although some are as powerful or as expensive as traditional stoves, and advanced, large-scale solar cookers can cook for hundreds of people. Because they use no fuel and cost nothing to operate, many nonprofit organizations are promoting their use worldwide in order to help reduce fuel costs and air pollution, and to help slow down deforestation and desertification.
WSolar Cookers International (SCI) is a U.S.-based non-profit advocacy group in Sacramento, California, founded by a group of people in 1987 and incorporated on January 6, 1988. Solar Cookers International advocates for and provides education on solar cooking.
WSolar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS) is a concentrated solar power plant in California, United States. With the combined capacity from three separate locations at 354 megawatt (MW), it is the world's second largest solar thermal energy generating facility, after the commissioning of the even larger Ivanpah facility in 2014. It consists of nine solar power plants in California's Mojave Desert, where insolation is among the best available in the United States. SEGS I–II (44 MW) are located at Daggett, SEGS III–VII (150 MW) are installed at Kramer Junction, and SEGS VIII–IX (160 MW) are placed at Harper Lake. NextEra Energy Resources operates and partially owns the plants located at Kramer Junction. On January 26, 2018, the SEGS VIII and IX at Harper Lake were sold to renewable energy company Terra-Gen, LLC. A tenth plant had been in construction and SEGS XI and SEGS XII had been planned by Luz Industries, but the developer filed for bankruptcy in 1992, because it was unable to secure construction financing.
WSolar Euromed is a high technology group based in France specialized in concentrated solar power technology, in activity from 2007 to 2016.
WA solar furnace is a structure that uses concentrated solar power to produce high temperatures, usually for industry. Parabolic mirrors or heliostats concentrate light (Insolation) onto a focal point. The temperature at the focal point may reach 3,500 °C (6,330 °F), and this heat can be used to generate electricity, melt steel, make hydrogen fuel or nanomaterials.
WA solar mirror contains a substrate with a reflective layer for reflecting the solar energy, and in most cases an interference layer. This may be a planar mirror or parabolic arrays of solar mirrors used to achieve a substantially concentrated reflection factor for solar energy systems.
WA solar pond is a pool of saltwater which collects and stores solar thermal energy. The saltwater naturally forms a vertical salinity gradient also known as a "halocline", in which low-salinity water floats on top of high-salinity water. The layers of salt solutions increase in concentration with depth. Below a certain depth, the solution has a uniformly high salt concentration.
WThe solar power tower, also known as 'central tower' power plants or 'heliostat' power plants or power towers, is a type of solar furnace using a tower to receive the focused sunlight. It uses an array of flat, movable mirrors to focus the sun's rays upon a collector tower. Concentrated solar thermal is seen as one viable solution for renewable, pollution-free energy.
WA solar thermal collector collects heat by absorbing sunlight. The term "solar collector" commonly refers to a device for solar hot water heating, but may refer to large power generating installations such as solar parabolic troughs and solar towers or non water heating devices such as solar air heaters.
WThe Big Dish is a parabolic dish concentrator developed by the Australian National University's Solar Thermal Group. The initial prototype, SG3 , was constructed on the Canberra campus of the Australian National University in 1994. A modified version of SG3 was exported to Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center at the Ben Gurion University in Israel. In 2006, a joint project led by the Solar Thermal Group with commercial partner Wizard Power, and funding from Australian's Government's Renewable Energy Development Initiative, began the design and construction of SG4 . SG4 is located next to the SG3 dish, and was completed in 2009.
WSolar water heating (SWH) is heating water by sunlight, using a solar thermal collector. A variety of configurations is available at varying cost to provide solutions in different climates and latitudes. SWHs are widely used for residential and some industrial applications.
WSolarlite CSP Technology GmbH, located in Mecklenburg-Pomerania, Germany, develops and builds decentralized solar-thermal parabolic trough power plants and process heat plants. For the first time worldwide, Solarlite is using direct steam generation commercially in a power plant. In 2012, Solarlite declared insolvency. The company was reincorporated the next year by Joachim Krüger (CEO).
WSolel Solar Systems Ltd. was an Israeli solar thermal equipment designer and manufacturer based in Beit Shemesh, Israel. Solel made equipment for solar thermal power plants, facilities that used the sun's heat to create steam and turn an electricity generator.
WThe Solnova Solar Power Station is a large CSP power station made up of five separate units of 50 MW each. The facility is part of the Solucar Complex, in Sanlúcar la Mayor, in Spain, the same area where the PS20 solar power tower is also located. With the commissioning of the third 50 MW unit, the Solnova-IV in August 2010, the power station ranks as one of the largest CSP power stations in the world.
WSOLVATTEN is a combined portable water treatment and solar water heater system that has been designed for use at the household level in the developing world. The device uses natural UV radiation to treat water, and units are capable of rendering highly contaminated water drinkable in a few hours, provided there is sufficient sunlight.
WThe Valle Solar Power Station is a two adjacent twin 50 MW solar thermal power plants in San José del Valle, Cádiz, Spain. The station generates power using parabolic trough technology. It became operational in January 2012. The Valle plant is owned by Torresol Energy, a joint venture between SENER (60%) and the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (40%). It was built by SENER between December 2009 and December 2011, at a cost of €540 million (US$700 million).