{"id":44965,"date":"2016-03-22T16:33:27","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T20:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetsave.com\/?p=44965"},"modified":"2016-03-23T12:57:05","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T16:57:05","slug":"concentrated-solar-power-about-solar-concentrator-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetsave.com\/articles\/concentrated-solar-power-about-solar-concentrator-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"Concentrated Solar Power | About Solar Concentrator Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Solar concentrator technology, commonly referred to as concentrated solar power, stands in contrast to static photovoltaic panel electricity<\/a> generating technologies, because it operates using moving parts, like a turbine, which can then generate electricity.<\/p>\n

\"CSP<\/p>\n

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA)<\/a>, power plants with concentrating solar power, most often referred to in the short form as CSP, use mirrors to concentrate the Sun\u2019s energy and drive traditional steam turbines or engines, which then generate electricity.<\/p>\n

The thermal energy produced in a CSP plant can be stored and used to produce electricity when it is needed, day or night. Today, over 1,400 MW of CSP plants operate in the United States, and another 390 MW will be placed in service in the next year.<\/p>\n

According to SolarServer<\/a>, the most optimistic CSP industry development scenarios forecast that 7% of the power supply in 2030 may be generated with CSP technology, growing further to a possible share of 25% by 2050. More moderate assumptions of SolarPaces, the European Solar Thermal Electricity Association (ESTELA) and Greenpeace International assess the combined solar power output to contribute between 3 – 3.6% in 2030 and 8 – 11.8% in 2050 to the worldwide power supply. This means a capacity of over 830 GW in 2050.<\/p>\n

Concentrated solar power\u00a0history<\/h2>\n

Concentrated solar power is definitely not a new idea. There is plenty of interesting history to read on this technology, starting with sites like Wikipedia<\/a>. Here we discover\u00a0legend has it\u00a0that Archimedes in battle used a “burning glass” to concentrate sunlight on the invading Roman fleet and repel them from Syracuse. In 1973 a Greek scientist, Dr. Ioannis Sakkas, curious about whether Archimedes could really have destroyed the Roman fleet in 212 BC, lined up nearly 60 Greek sailors, each holding an oblong mirror tipped to catch the sun’s rays and direct them at a tar-covered plywood silhouette 160 feet away. The ship caught fire after a few minutes. Even so, historians still doubt the Archimedes story, even if it makes great fiction.<\/p>\n

Moving away from the tools of war,\u00a0Auguste Mouchout<\/a> used a parabolic trough in 1866 to produce steam for the first solar steam engine. And after this feat, Professor Giovanni Francia designed and built the first concentrated-solar plant, which began\u00a0operation in Sant’Ilario, near Genoa, Italy in 1968. This plant featured the architecture of today’s concentrated-solar plants with a solar receiver in the center of a field of solar collectors. The plant was able to produce 1\u00a0MW with superheated steam.<\/p>\n

Four primary CSP technologies<\/h3>\n

Thanks to the varied forms of engineering ingenuity, there are four primary technologies used in concentrated solar power plants around the world:<\/p>\n