What is solar tower/chimney?
Question:
Answer:
Solar Tower Systems
These systems produce electricity on a large scale. They are unique among solar technologies because they can store energy efficiently and cost effectively. They can operate whenever the customer needs power, even after dark or during cloudy weather.
Power towers operate by focusing a field of thousands of mirrors onto a receiver located at the top of a centrally located tower. The receiver collects the sun's heat in a heat-transfer fluid, which is used to generate steam for a conventional steam turbine located at the foot of the tower for production of electricity.
Based on other companies experiences with solar tower applications, which used water/steam as the heat-transfer fluid, our engineers determined that power towers would operate more efficiently using molten salt. The salt would have the further advantage of providing a practical way to store the heat.
During operation, the salt is heated to more than 565°C and stored in a tank next to the tower. When electricity production is needed, the hot salt is pumped from this "hot" storage tank to the steam generator.
Power towers also have distinct advantages over conventional power plants. Like all solar technologies, they consume no fuel, so they do not pollute the environment. Similarly, they are capital intensive but cost little to operate.
The basic design is used as a dehydrator...air will flow through it.
http://www.littlecolorado.org/solar.htm...
A solar chimney did generate 30 mw electricity for a few years in Spain. Some have big plans for them...
http://www.gluckman.com/solarchimney.htm...
http://alt-e.blogspot.com/2004/08/solar-...
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