Solar power may have become synonymous with photovoltaic cells, but not anymore.
A fruitful partnership between Endesa, a Spanish utility company and the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, or DLR) has created the first of its kind concentrated solar power plant that uses high-pressure steam from water to drive a conventional turbine.
For the uninitiated, an ordinary concentrated solar plant is one in which a reflective surface such as a mirror or lens is used to heat fluid, for example synthetic oil, which then generates high-pressure steam that finally drives a conventional turbine, thereby generating electricity. However, this unique solar plant converts water kept at very high pressure (up to 1740 psi), to superheated steam (around 500C).
Based out of the municipality of Carboneras, in southern Spain, the solar plant was first used on March 31st. Its success has made solar power generation more cost effective, as the high temperatures achieved during the conversion process ensure efficiency, and hence viability of the process. The plant also boasts of being an improvement in terms of storing energy.
While normal plants can gather and store the heat they generate in either sensible or latent forms, this plant is able to store its heat in both forms, which can later be converted into energy as and when needed, especially on a rainy or cloudy day.
Put simply, this means that the solar power plant has the capability to gather and store the heat it creates in both – a concrete storage tank (like in sensible heat systems), as well as in salt, which changes form on absorbing, and then on releasing energy (like in latent heat systems).
Doerte Laing, Thermal Energy Storage Research Area Manager at the DLR Institute of Technical Thermodynamics explains why this solar plant could put other plants out of work:
The advantage of such a system is its capacity to store large amounts of energy in a small volume and with a minimal temperature change.”
As of now, the plant will be kept in use until the end of 2011, when the process of generating direct solar steam and its various storage methods, among other things, will be validated.
Source: Gizmag
