Concentrated solar power

Solar energy is something most people know about but their ideas are mainly of solar photovoltaic. This is the direct conversion of sunlight in to electricity. Photovoltaic is not the only way to harness the energy from the sun.

Head outside in summer time and everybody is going to feel the rays of the sun or more exact the heat. Quite often this becomes too uncomfortable and we head for a more cooler air conditioned environment. This heat energy is what Concentrated Solar Power is all about. Capturing that heat and turning it into usable energy.

Storing the heat of the Sun has one quite significant advantage over photovoltaic and that is the stored heat energy can be used at night. This energy storage concept may be seen in the home with some storage radiators that turn low rate electricity in to stored heat in bricks that is radiated thought the house.

To be really efficient this has to be done on a massive scale and at much higher temperatures. The concentrating part is taking the suns energy over a large area using mirrors and focusing or concentrating it all together. This the heats salt which can function at these high temperatures and keeps the energy from leaking away.

For this to be usable as electricity the heat is more often turned in to steam and the on to an electricity generator much like an ordinary power station.

Engineering a Thermal Power Station is much more costly and difficult that photovoltaic. In fact photovoltaic is so easy that many people have them installed on their residences.

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Concentrated solar power

Renewable energies do have many problems that do have to be over come such as the wind might now blow to turn that wind turbine or the sun does not always shine to energise solar panels. One solution that would solve many problems with energy, not just for the cleaner renewable forms, is energy storage. While it may be easy just to turn a switch in our homes and light will appear it is not the same for producing that power.

We need an instant supply of energy and the generation of energy is variable. The solution is to insert a form of energy storage in between supply and demand. In other words a battery but on a much much larger scale.

The solar plant in California is a Solar Thermal Plant. These thermal power stations use mirrors, heliostats , to focus the heat of the sun into one tiny area. In effect concentration the light just like a magnifying lens. All this concentrated energy is used to heat, what is in effect, salt to extremely high temperatures.

The salt is so hot that it become molten and this is not something you would want near your skin. When this is stored the salt retains most of its heat and acts like a battery, a heat battery. To generate power the molten salt is used to heat water to drive an electric turbine.

The result here is electricity can be produced 24 hours a day from solar, that includes night time and days when cloud cover could block the rays of the sun. This has an advantage of photovoltaic solar arrays that only produce electricity during the daytime hours.

It should be clear that this is not something you can place on your roof, we are talking a full scale power plant here. But that should not distract anybody from using photovoltaic solar energy in their home. There is nothing better than having free energy that you have produced yourself.

The company behind the power plant is SolarReserve and they hope to begin construction in California in the latter part of 2011.

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Another acronym comes along in the solar industry for us to remember. This time it is CPV which stands for Concentrated Photo Voltaic. The difference here between the more common Photovoltaic (PV) is the the addition of a lens in front of the solar cell. This acts a bit like a magnifying glass to focus the solar energy on the cell, it gets Concentrated.

The added factor of  the Amonix units being steerable keeps them at the optimum angle to capture more of the suns energy than fixed solar panels. Efficiency of the units comes out at around 25% of the suns energy converted in to usable electricity. The actual individual cells themselves can capture 39% of sunlight. The solar array has an output of around 72 kilowatts and all this is done using a much smaller area than a solar farm using just standard photovoltaic panels.

Just like cooking eggs, there is more than one way to do it. Capturing solar energy is possible in many forms to suit many purposes. The Amonix fills a gap for utilizing a much smaller area that produces more power.

Plans as afoot for Amonix to build solar farms in the South West USA capable of producing up to 20 megawatts of energy

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Currently Morocco relies on Oil which currently supplies 95% of its energy needs. Unlike some other African and Middle East nations, Morocco has a lack of mineral resources in its territory and depends mostly on oil imports.

Concentrated solar power

It is hoped that by the year 2020, up to 2,000 megawatts of energy will be supplied by a combination of photovoltaic solar and solar thermal generating plants. This would reduce the countries dependence on Oil by 1 million tons each year.

The solar project, when completed, would produce up to 40% of the countries energy production. Morocco is one of many counties that can implement solar production to produce such a large percentage of its energy due to its location which is highly suited for solar production. The European Union, with its Desertec projects, is also planning to take advantage of the North African location in its own ambitious project.

With energy security becoming more important in the years to come, the reduction of the reliance on importing Oil will be top priorities for many countries in North Africa and the rest of the world. Solar energy might not be suitable for every country, wind or geo thermal might be alternatives,

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